Increasing Customer Expectations Research Articles

Service Quality Perception and its Impact on Internet Banking in Klang Valley

Banking in Malaysia has undergone rapid transformation over the past two decades, witnessing a maritime shift in the nature of the services offered by banks, which have a positive impact on bank customers. The public sector banks have started to incorporate new technology into their operations with increasing customer expectations. It brought about a change in customer perceptions. Hence to what extent the needs to be studied were satisfied or not satisfied with the consumers. Since the Internet is a new virtual medium with so many potential customers, it is the banks that are most critical to consider customer desires and wants. This study aims to identify the impact of demographic characteristics of respondents on internet banking adoption. A total of 600 respondents from the one of the banks in Kuala Lumpur City who was selected for the purpose of this study. Results on service quality perception and its impact on Internet banking has been discussed in this paper.

Crisis management of municipality performance on citizen satisfaction with urban services by structural equation modeling

By the environmental complexities in the field of business competition and increasing customer expectations, make more evident the necessity of awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of organizations and continuous improvement of the overall indicators. Hence one of the major challenges of today organizations is to have a comprehensive, reliable, and flexible performance evaluation method. Municipalities as well as a public entity are not excepted, and performance evaluation can help them. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of Urban Services based on the satisfaction of the citizens by using structural equation modeling. To do this, the research is done by descriptive-survey methods and designed questions. The results show that the variables of technical and constructional services and social and cultural services will effect on the satisfaction level of the citizens from the performance of municipality and the variable of urban services has no effect on that.

An Efficient Approach for Solving Integrated Production and Distribution Planning Problems

The increasing customer expectations for customized products of high quality in short delays and the worldwide competition in terms of quality and costs have pushed industries to implement new strategies to manage their supply chain decisions. In this context, the integrated planning is becoming the most dominant over the operational research field because of its efficiency and its ability to cover the different aspects of the problem. Production routing problem is one of the problems of the integrated planning that is of interest in optimizing simultaneously production, inventory, and distribution planning. This paper has the purpose of developing two mono-objective models for the production-routing problem; one of them minimizes the total costs, while the other one minimizes the energy consumed by the production system. Finally, a bi-objective model is proposed to combine the two objectives mentioned previously using the LP-metric method in the context of a sustainable supply chain. Experimental results are also presented and discussed through the different scenarios.

Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) Methodology and its application in Supply Chain Research

The horizon of the supply chain (SC) in the business in increasing continuously and becoming complex with its expanding role, which is result of technological advancement, ever increasing customer expectation, regulatory compliances and changing business models. Researchers used various methods to understand SC complexity and decipher the factors impacting the SC processes and concepts. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) is one of the methods which is widely used in literature to transforms complex and abstract business phenomenon or vaguely defined business processes into clearly articulated, visual, structured models. This method includes interactive technique which helps to structure and build the comprehensive systematic model for set of different but related elements. The objective of this paper is to review the literature on ISM as methodology for understanding the complexity of SC challenges, issues, barriers and enablers of various processes or functions and their classifications based on SC processes using a structured approach. This study further elaborates the process for modelling structure and presented ISM as a modelling approach by elaborating steps and important features. Discussion and managerial implications of using and extending ISM in SC are provided to conclude the review.

Increasing the Practical Applicability of Research on Order Picking Planning: State-of-the-Art Classification and Review

Market trends such as globalisation, increasing customer expectations, expensive industrial land and high labour costs cause a need for efficient order picking systems in practice. However, managers often do not implement findings from academic research on order picking planning into practice because researchers hardly account for practical factors (e.g., high-level storage, human factors, pick vehicle properties) or make unrealistic assumptions in their solution algorithms. A state-of-the-art review of the scientific literature on order picking planning (1) identifies and classifies highly influential practical factors, (2) shows the impact of these practical factors on order picking performance, and (3) illustrates how existing order picking planning models should be elaborated to account for practical factors. This study contributes to close the gap between research and practice by guiding future researchers to further increase the practical applicability of their research results.

Evaluation of the airport service quality indicators using fuzzy AHP framework: an Indian perspective

In this era of globalisation, renewed emphasis on service quality and increased customer expectations have augmented the responsibility of airport operators and managers to provide good service quality at airports. With the growing investment and privatisation at Indian airports; overall quality of airport service emerges as the major differentiating factor among airports. Indian airports are also competing with the other airports globally and concentrating to provide good service quality and experiences to the passengers. They have started focusing on airport service quality (ASQ) indicators with the goal of delivering good service quality, so that passengers can choose their airports for future travel. The aim of this paper is comprehensive evaluation and research of airport service quality dimensions. This paper presents a model based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assess the ASQ indicators. A numerical analysis of Indian airports is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework that can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. The robustness of the model is verified by sensitivity analysis.

Evaluation of the airport service quality indicators using fuzzy AHP framework: an Indian perspective

In this era of globalisation, renewed emphasis on service quality and increased customer expectations have augmented the responsibility of airport operators and managers to provide good service quality at airports. With the growing investment and privatisation at Indian airports; overall quality of airport service emerges as the major differentiating factor among airports. Indian airports are also competing with the other airports globally and concentrating to provide good service quality and experiences to the passengers. They have started focusing on airport service quality (ASQ) indicators with the goal of delivering good service quality, so that passengers can choose their airports for future travel. The aim of this paper is comprehensive evaluation and research of airport service quality dimensions. This paper presents a model based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assess the ASQ indicators. A numerical analysis of Indian airports is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework that can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. The robustness of the model is verified by sensitivity analysis.

ATTITUDE OF SLOVAK SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES TOWARDS RISK MANAGEMENT – INVESTIGATION OF THE REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

Contemporary trends highlight the need for education in each enterprise. The current business environment is characterized by many changes such as increased customer expectations and high levels of competitiveness in the environment. World trends, shows, that managers and owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceived the need to take care of risk management in their enterprise. This issue has been analyzed and discussed for a long time. It is necessary to concentrate on this field mainly in the Slovak Republic. SMEs in Slovakia are very sensitive to changes in the environment.
 The aim of this paper is to investigate regional differences in the attitude of Slovak SMEs towards risk management, with special emphasis on the attitude towards significance of the education in the field of risk management based on empirical research, which was provided by authors in 2017. This paper will evaluate: the level of dependence between the selected Slovak regions and the created space for discussion about risks in SMEs, the level of dependence between selected Slovak regions and the created space for employee education in risk management in SMEs, and the level of dependence between selected Slovak regions and the required education possibilities in the field of risk management. It will use: association, the Pearson’s coefficient and the Tschuprov coefficient for evaluating the results.
 Overall results of the empirical research point towards the significance and importance of using risk management in SMEs. The results, shows, that there is a very large association between investigating dependence. Based on the results, it is necessary to improve the level of education in the field of risk management, which will be based on current entrepreneurial requirements.

Special Issue on Recent Advances in Urban Transport and Logistics Through Optimization and Analytics

There has been a significant body of research on making urban transportation more efficient and sustainable. Planning of urban transportation services is challenging due to the crowded traffic infrastructure, increasing customer expectations, and rules set by municipalities. In recent years, a vast amount of urban transportation data has become available, e.g., travel times and customer demand data. This special issue intends to establish the landscape for the state-of-the-art in urban transportation involving optimization and analytics.

Forecasting sales in the supply chain: Consumer analytics in the big data era

Forecasts have traditionally served as the basis for planning and executing supply chain activities. Forecasts drive supply chain decisions, and they have become critically important due to increasing customer expectations, shortening lead times, and the need to manage scarce resources. Over the last ten years, advances in technology and data collection systems have resulted in the generation of huge volumes of data on a wide variety of topics and at great speed. This paper reviews the impact that this explosion of data is having on product forecasting and how it is improving it. While much of this review will focus on time series data, we will also explore how such data can be used to obtain insights into consumer behavior, and the impact of such data on organizational forecasting.

Model to build cost competitiveness through material productivity – a case study

Companies are facing increased customer expectations and cut throat market competition. Organizations are driving three major performance measures which are market outperformance, incremental margin, and cash flow conversion. As companies continue to outsource large portions of their manufacturing, managing material costs in the supply chain are important in reducing overall costs and remain competitive in order to ensure that all supply chain partners particularly in the upstream supply chain survive and be part of the future growth. The purpose of this paper is to present the detailed analysis of the various cost factors which affects the organizational performance and developing a unique model for the material productivity program. The key criterions include the innovative ideas of cost reduction, continual focus to eliminate wastes in the supply chain and also to drive excellence in execution of these projects.As the case industry has become global, it is essential for the case industry to carryout structured and sustained material cost reduction activity in order to capture the potential market through cost leadership and to emerge as best cost supplier among the other plants. This particular research work discusses more in detail about Indian market conditions, the changing customer needs due to entry of the global multinationals, the new challenges that we face in the local and the global market and how we respond to it and also to spell out the changing customer demand for the reduced cost, the challenges of price escalations of various input costs, the processes which case industry follow to reduce the cost, and suggesting a cost reduction methodology to achieve sustained cost reduction year on year. The result shows 4% reduction in material costs and the quality improvement of the production of automotive ancillary components.

Benchmark Study on Omni-Channel Integration – Capability Scale Development Based on Internal and External Dimensions

Brick-and-mortar retailers are nowadays confronted with increased customer expectations and competitive pressure from online pure players. While omni-channel retailing may present exceptional growth opportunities, accompanying significant invest- ments and further complexity in channel integration pose unprecedented challenges. This article 1 is the first to promote a comprehensive framework on the multi-dimensionality of omni-channel integration. Moreover, we propose an objectified measurement scale to as- sess a retailer’s omni-channel capability as prevailing measures solely feature a macro view or are externally-focused. We find growing revenues and meeting customer expectations to be drivers of omni-channel engagement. Consolidating the IT infrastructure alongside overcoming organizational issues are discovered as dominant impediments. Furthermore, the study takes a micro view on the multiple dimensions of omni-channel integration that are clustered into organization, data and infrastructure, processes, and marketing strategy. The findings enable managers to prioritize investment decisions, define a complementary retailing strategy and assess their competitive positioning.

The Practical Aspects of Local Development of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Travel Companies

Abstract The aim of this publication is to present the effects of one of the projects conducted in Opole Province, titled “The effective transfer of knowledge from science to industry in Opole Province” and its impact on the practical aspects of the local development of entrepreneurship and innovation in travel companies. The presented material constitutes an attempt to answer the research problems associated with the introduced innovations. These problems have been formulated as the following questions: Is the GPS functional enough to significantly improve transportation services? Does the cost of implementing the system not exceed the profits it generates? Does the use of GPS in performing transportation services cost-effective also for small businesses? Is a company that uses the GPS able to meet the increasing customer expectations? How can a business benefit as a result of implementing the system? To verify this objective, theoretical research tools were used, such as: analysis, synthesis, generalizations, and comparisons. In terms of practical methods, the following found application: observation method (gathering information on companies, interviews with employees, analysis of documents) and analytical method.

Lean Implementation and Organizational Transformation: A Literature Review

Manufacturing organizations are constantly striving to develop more effective and flexible means for managing challenges due to globalization and increasing customer expectations. This has led to increased efforts by the business community to research and implement the Toyota Production System, or lean manufacturing, to address these challenges. These efforts have resulted in numerous publications on lean manufacturing, including research reports, scholarly articles, and trade magazine articles. However, the existing body of knowledge on lean manufacturing is disperse and diverse in nature with respect to the application and implementation of lean tools and practices, making it difficult for researchers and practitioners to gain a real grasp of this topic. In this article, we have comprehensively organized the existing work on implementation of lean manufacturing in a more structured way, enabling engineering management practitioners to more easily identify knowledge and best practices and enabling researchers to identify gaps in the extant literature. Lastly, drawing from the organizational science literature, this article also provides important insights on lean manufacturing from the perspective of organizational learning, innovation, and \\culture.

A benchmarking approach for enhancing agility in manufacturing environment

The agile manufacturing companies have been putting efforts for enhancing the agility along various dimensions to sustain and grow in today's global business arena with volatile market conditions, rapid change in technology, immature and innovative products, ever changing and increasing customer expectations, and intense competition. One should understand and analyse the enablers, impediments and outcomes of agile manufacturing to develop the right strategy(s) to enhance its agility. Although few works have been reported on agility assessment and enhancement in the literature, they are mostly industry specific. Therefore, a generic benchmarking framework for enhancing agility along with step by step implementation process is proposed and discussed in detail. This proposed framework can serve as a road map to enhance agility of agile manufacturing.

Analogue-based demand forecasting of short life-cycle products: a regression approach and a comprehensive assessment

In several industries, global competition, increasing customer expectations and technological innovations tend to accelerate product life-cycles. In this changing environment, traditional forecasting methods tend to be ineffective as a consequence of the transient and highly uncertain demand of short life-cycle products (SLCP), and the scarcity of sales data. To address this challenge, we present a methodology to forecast SLCP demand using time series of similar products referred to as analogies. Linear regression and clustering techniques are used for the selection and weighting of suitable analogies. The proposed methodology is tested against seven analogue-based forecasting methods, including two implementations of non-linear regression methods. In different sets of time series, our methodology attained more accurate forecasts with short processing times compared with state-of-the-art methods. Such results reveal promising applications of combined regression and clustering techniques as simple and effective forecasting tools for supporting replenishment decisions for SLCP.

When Do Customers Get What They Expect? Understanding the Ambivalent Effects of Customers’ Service Expectations on Satisfaction

Extant research established that customers’ expectations play an ambivalent role in the satisfaction formation process: While higher expectations are more difficult to meet and thus cause dissatisfaction, they simultaneously increase satisfaction via customers’ perceived performance owing to a placebo effect. However, to date, knowledge is scarce on the question under which conditions either the positive or negative effect of expectations on satisfaction prevails. Building on information processing theory, the authors hypothesize that an essential contingency of the indirect, placebo-based effect is the degree to which customers are able and motivated to process a service experience. Three studies with a total of over 4,000 customers in different service contexts provide strong evidence for this hypothesis. Thus, managers are well advised to provide a realistic or even understated prospect if the service context favors customers’ ability or motivation to evaluate. Conversely, if customers are neither able nor motivated to evaluate the service, increasing customer expectations represents a viable strategy to enhance satisfaction. Relatedly, if customers hold low service expectations, managers should foster customers’ ability and motivation to evaluate the service. In contrast, if service expectations are high, managers may benefit from reducing the likelihood that customers overly focus on the service performance.

Development and Application of a Maturity Measurement Framework for Supply Chain Flexibility

Today's supply chains (SC) are acting in an ever more complex, dynamic and uncertain business environment. Increased customer expectations regarding product variety, shortened product life-cycles and volatile demand motivate the need for supply chain flexibility (SCF) in the face of stiff competition and environmental changes. Flexibility processes implementation in supply chains varies according to companies and SC, due to several factors. The level of awareness of the need for flexibility, the proactive or reactive plan and use of flexibility; and the focus on the SC as a whole or in single companies are examples. The concept of process maturity assumes that the implementation of procedures is carried out in multiple evolutionary and successive stages, which are explicitly defined, managed and measured. Maturity models give companies indicators as well as guidance to analyze and subsequently improve their processes. Despite several SC maturity models in the literature, there is not a model focusing on the maturity of SC flexibility processes, like the one intended in this paper. The levels of the maturity of SCF are (1) none, (2) inter-firm, (3) SC reactive, (4) SC proactive, and (5) SC paradigmatic. Each level has five dimensions: (1) Collaboration, (2) Information Technology, (3) Information flow, (4) Internal flexibility types and (5) Performance measurement. A toy case drawn from the automotive industry illustrates the application of the model from a dyad perspective. Based on the findings, SC flexibility maturity levels are measured in each of the analyzed links and areas for improvement are identified.

Recent developments and challenges in chemical disease control - a review

Leadbeater A. (2015): Recent developments and challenges in chemical disease control. Plant Protect. Sci., 51: 163–169. The use of chemical fungicides to control plant diseases is an integral component of crop management. Although fungicides have been used to good effect in agriculture since the 1940s, the introduction of new fungicides is an es sential element to provide sustained control of major crop diseases. The need for new and innovative fungicides is driven, among other factors, by resistance management, regulatory hurdles, and increasing customer expectations. New fungicides can be discovered either within established mode of action groups, ideally with low resistance risk (robust modes of action), or in areas with completely novel modes of action. Compounds having a novel mode of action are of course of special interest, since they play a key role in resistance management strategies, but equally important are new fungicides with enhanced characteristics such as systemicity, curativity, and longevity of disease control. With the background of increasing registration hurdles, increasing costs, and increasing market needs, the current market position of major crop protection fungicides needs to be reviewed, along with the consideration of current and fu ture market needs. An analysis of the situation regarding new fungicidal compounds in late development or recently introduced to the market suggests that considerable innovation continues to be delivered in the chemical fungicide area. New modes of action are quite rare in some segments (major new fungicides are mainly SDHIs), but seem to be more frequently discovered for the control of oomycetes. Potential reasons for this are discussed.

Simulation platform for anticipative plant-level maintenance decision support system

Global competition and increasing customer expectations are forcing automobile manufacturers to improve their operations. Maintenance, being one of the most critical components in many industries, has a direct impact on the improvement of the overall production performance. In this paper, we introduce an anticipative plant-level maintenance decision support system (APMDSS) that provides guidance on corrective and preventive maintenance priorities based on the equipment bottleneck ranks with the objective of improving daily plant throughput. APMDSS anticipates the plant dynamics (i.e. bottlenecks, hourly buffer levels and likelihood of machine breakdowns) for upcoming shifts using starting state information of the production shift (e.g. equipment maintenance history, operational status of machines, buffer levels and scheduled production model mix). We also evaluate the performance of APMDSS using real data from an automotive body shop experiencing routine throughput difficulties due to frequent machine breakdowns. The results are compared with other methods from the literature and found to be superior in many settings.