Search results for: Quality Costs
3513 Improvement of the Quality of Internet Service Based On an Internet Exchange Point (IXP)
Authors: Souleymane Oumtanaga, Falilu Abudul Kadiri
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Internet is without any doubt the fastest and effective mean of communication making it possible to reach a great number of people in the world. It draws its base from exchange points. Indeed exchange points are used to inter-connect various Internet suppliers and operators in order to allow them to exchange traffic and it is with these interconnections that Internet made its great strides. They thus make it possible to limit the traffic delivered via the operators of transits. This limitation allows a significant improvement of the quality of service, a reduction in the latency time just as a reduction of the cost of connection for the final subscriber. Through this article we will show how the installation of an IXP allows an improvement and a diversification of the services just as a reduction of the Internet connection costs.
Keywords: Quality of service, Exchange point, interconnection, Service providers, bandwidth, traffic, routers, routing table.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14643512 Using Mixtures of Waste Frying Oil and Pork Lard to Produce Biodiesel
Authors: Joana M. Dias, Conceição A. Ferraz, Manuel F. Almeida
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Studying alternative raw materials for biodiesel production is of major importance. The use of mixtures with incorporation of wastes is an environmental friendly alternative and might reduce biodiesel production costs. The objective of the present work was: (i) to study biodiesel production using waste frying oil mixed with pork lard and (ii) to understand how mixture composition influences biodiesel quality. Biodiesel was produced by transesterification and quality was evaluated through determination of several parameters according to EN 14214. The weight fraction of lard in the mixture varied from 0 to 1 in 0.2 intervals. Biodiesel production yields varied from 81.7 to 88.0 (wt%), the lowest yields being the ones obtained using waste frying oil and lard alone as raw materials. The obtained products fulfilled most of the determined quality specifications according to European biodiesel quality standard EN 14214. Minimum purity (96.5 wt%) was closely obtained when waste frying oil was used alone and when 0.2% of lard was incorporated in the raw material (96.3 wt%); however, it ranged from 93.9 to 96.3 (wt%) being always close to the limit. From the evaluation of the influence of mixture composition in biodiesel quality, it was possible to establish a model to be used for predicting some parameters of biodiesel resulting from mixtures of waste frying oil with lard when different lard contents are used.
Keywords: Biodiesel, mixtures, transesterification, waste.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25473511 Quality Management in Public e-Administration
Authors: J. Ruso, M. Krsmanovic, A. Trajkovic, Z. Rakicevic
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Since the late 1970s, quality management has become an important tool for achieving a high quality of public e-administration services in many countries. Very important part of quality management in e-administration is measurement of quality indicators related to this sector. Therefore, this paper gives a description of e-administration, including statistics about it and other examples from many countries worldwide, as well as the explanation of quality management in public e-administration. The paper also gives a list and description of quality indicators relevant to e-administration, as part of quality management within the e-administration. Through a literature review and best practices, the paper aims to analyze quality indicators measurement and other parts of good quality management when it comes to the public e-administration and consequently to show the usefulness of quality management in public e-administration in order to provide services of high quality.
Keywords: e-Administration, quality indicators, quality management.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18543510 Application of Costing System in the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) in Turkey
Authors: Hamide Özyürek, Metin Yılmaz
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Standard processes, similar and limited production lines, the production of high direct costs will be more accurate than the use of parts of the traditional cost systems in the literature. However, direct costs, overhead expenses, in turn, decrease the burden of increasingly sophisticated production facilities, a situation that led the researchers to look for the cost of traditional systems of alternative techniques. Variety cost management approaches for example Total quality management (TQM), just-in-time (JIT), benchmarking, kaizen costing, targeting cost, life cycle costs (LLC), activity-based costing (ABC) value engineering have been introduced. Management and cost applications have changed over the past decade and will continue to change. Modern cost systems can provide relevant and accurate cost information. These methods provide the decisions about customer, product and process improvement. The aim of study is to describe and explain the adoption and application of costing systems in SME. This purpose reports on a survey conducted during 2014 small and medium sized enterprises (SME) in Ankara. The survey results were evaluated using SPSS18 package program.
Keywords: Cost Accounting, Costing, Modern Costing Systems, Managerial Accounting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 53293509 Evaluating Refactoring with a Quality Index
Authors: Crt Gerlec, Marjan Hericko
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The aim of every software product is to achieve an appropriate level of software quality. Developers and designers are trying to produce readable, reliable, maintainable, reusable and testable code. To help achieve these goals, several approaches have been utilized. In this paper, refactoring technique was used to evaluate software quality with a quality index. It is composed of different metric sets which describes various quality aspects.Keywords: Refactoring, Software Metrics, Software Quality, Quality Index, Agile methodologies
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16213508 PSO-based Possibilistic Portfolio Model with Transaction Costs
Authors: Wei Chen, Cui-you Yao, Yue Qiu
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This paper deals with a portfolio selection problem based on the possibility theory under the assumption that the returns of assets are LR-type fuzzy numbers. A possibilistic portfolio model with transaction costs is proposed, in which the possibilistic mean value of the return is termed measure of investment return, and the possibilistic variance of the return is termed measure of investment risk. Due to considering transaction costs, the existing traditional optimization algorithms usually fail to find the optimal solution efficiently and heuristic algorithms can be the best method. Therefore, a particle swarm optimization is designed to solve the corresponding optimization problem. At last, a numerical example is given to illustrate our proposed effective means and approaches.Keywords: Possibility theory, portfolio selection, transaction costs, particle swarm optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15333507 Evaluating Customer Satisfaction as an Aspect of Quality Management
Authors: Olga V. Krivobokova
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A major goal of any enterprise is to create a ratings system of customer satisfaction, goods and services. It is obvious that the company cannot change what is not measured. In order to get a clearer picture of the preferences of the major consumer groups, this stage should be based on extensive research, including a variety of interviews and surveys. It is necessary to know the key benefits, which determine customer satisfaction in the market segment, of the properties of certain goods and services. It is important to estimate the terms of these preferences from the viewpoint of the client. This article discusses the importance of customer satisfaction, and ways of assessing it.Keywords: Costs, customer, evaluation, organization, producer, quality management, satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19413506 Cost Based Warranty Optimisation Using Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Dragan D. Stamenkovic, Vladimir M. Popovic
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Warranty is a powerful marketing tool for the manufacturer and a good protection for both the manufacturer and the customer. However, warranty always involves additional costs to the manufacturer, which depend on product reliability characteristics and warranty parameters. This paper presents an approach to optimisation of warranty parameters for known product failure distribution to reduce the warranty costs to the manufacturer while retaining the promotional function of the warranty. Combination free replacement and pro-rata warranty policy is chosen as a model and the length of free replacement period and pro-rata policy period are varied, as well as the coefficients that define the pro-rata cost function. Multiparametric warranty optimisation is done by using genetic algorithm. Obtained results are guideline for the manufacturer to choose the warranty policy that minimises the costs and maximises the profit.Keywords: costs, genetic algorithm, optimisation, warranty.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16953505 Processing Design of Miniature Casting Incorporating Stereolithography Technologies
Authors: Pei-Hsing Huang, Wei-Ju Huang
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Investment casting is commonly used in the production of metallic components with complex shapes, due to its high dimensional precision, good surface finish, and low cost. However, the process is cumbersome, and the period between trial casting and final production can be very long, thereby limiting business opportunities and competitiveness. In this study, we replaced conventional wax injection with stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing to speed up the trial process and reduce costs. We also used silicone molds to further reduce costs to avoid the high costs imposed by photosensitive resin.
Keywords: Investment casting, stereolithography, wax molding, 3D printing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14883504 A Study on Evaluation of E-Government Service Quality
Authors: Nguyen Manh Hien
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Service quality is the highest requirement by users, especially for the service in electronic government. During the past decades, it has become a major area of academic investigation. Considering this issue, there are a lot of researches that evaluated the dimensions and e-service contexts. This study also identified the dimensions of service quality, but focuses on a new concept and provides a new methodology in developing measurement scales of e-service quality such as information quality, service quality and organization quality. Finally, this study will suggest a key factor to evaluate e-government service quality better.
Keywords: E-government, e-service, e-service quality, dimensionality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 64453503 Optimal Sizing of a Hybrid Wind/PV Plant Considering Reliability Indices
Authors: S. Dehghan, B. Kiani, A. Kazemi, A. Parizad
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The utilization of renewable energy sources in electric power systems is increasing quickly because of public apprehensions for unpleasant environmental impacts and increase in the energy costs involved with the use of conventional energy sources. Despite the application of these energy sources can considerably diminish the system fuel costs, they can also have significant influence on the system reliability. Therefore an appropriate combination of the system reliability indices level and capital investment costs of system is vital. This paper presents a hybrid wind/photovoltaic plant, with the aim of supplying IEEE reliability test system load pattern while the plant capital investment costs is minimized by applying a hybrid particle swarm optimization (PSO) / harmony search (HS) approach, and the system fulfills the appropriate level of reliability.Keywords: Distributed Generation, Fuel Cell, HS, Hybrid Power Plant, PSO, Photovoltaic, Reliability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23013502 Multi-matrix Real-coded Genetic Algorithm for Minimising Total Costs in Logistics Chain Network
Authors: Pupong Pongcharoen, Aphirak Khadwilard, Anothai Klakankhai
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The importance of supply chain and logistics management has been widely recognised. Effective management of the supply chain can reduce costs and lead times and improve responsiveness to changing customer demands. This paper proposes a multi-matrix real-coded Generic Algorithm (MRGA) based optimisation tool that minimises total costs associated within supply chain logistics. According to finite capacity constraints of all parties within the chain, Genetic Algorithm (GA) often produces infeasible chromosomes during initialisation and evolution processes. In the proposed algorithm, chromosome initialisation procedure, crossover and mutation operations that always guarantee feasible solutions were embedded. The proposed algorithm was tested using three sizes of benchmarking dataset of logistic chain network, which are typical of those faced by most global manufacturing companies. A half fractional factorial design was carried out to investigate the influence of alternative crossover and mutation operators by varying GA parameters. The analysis of experimental results suggested that the quality of solutions obtained is sensitive to the ways in which the genetic parameters and operators are set.Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Logistics, Optimisation, Supply Chain.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18093501 What Attributes Determine Housing Affordability?
Authors: E. Mulliner, V. Maliene
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The concept of housing affordability is a contested issue, but a pressing and widespread problem for many countries. Simple ratio measures based on housing expenditure and income are habitually used to defined and assess housing affordability. However, conceptualising and measuring affordability in this manner focuses only on financial attributes and fails to deal with wider issues such as housing quality, location and access to services and facilities. The research is based on the notion that the housing affordability problem encompasses more than the financial costs of housing and a households ability to meet such costs and must address larger issues such as social and environmental sustainability and the welfare of households. Therefore, the need arises for a broad and more encompassing set of attributes by which housing affordability can be assessed. This paper presents a system of criteria by which the affordability of different housing locations could be assessed in a comprehensive and sustainable manner. Moreover, the paper explores the way in which such criteria could be measured.Keywords: Affordable housing, attributes, housing affordability, sustainable communities
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26113500 The Impact of System and Data Quality on Organizational Success in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Authors: Amal M. Alrayes
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Data and system quality play a central role in organizational success, and the quality of any existing information system has a major influence on the effectiveness of overall system performance. Given the importance of system and data quality to an organization, it is relevant to highlight their importance on organizational performance in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This research aims to discover whether system quality and data quality are related, and to study the impact of system and data quality on organizational success. A theoretical model based on previous research is used to show the relationship between data and system quality, and organizational impact. We hypothesize, first, that system quality is positively associated with organizational impact, secondly that system quality is positively associated with data quality, and finally that data quality is positively associated with organizational impact. A questionnaire was conducted among public and private organizations in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The results show that there is a strong association between data and system quality, that affects organizational success.Keywords: Data quality, performance, system quality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21173499 Modeling and Optimization of Aggregate Production Planning - A Genetic Algorithm Approach
Authors: B. Fahimnia, L.H.S. Luong, R. M. Marian
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The Aggregate Production Plan (APP) is a schedule of the organization-s overall operations over a planning horizon to satisfy demand while minimizing costs. It is the baseline for any further planning and formulating the master production scheduling, resources, capacity and raw material planning. This paper presents a methodology to model the Aggregate Production Planning problem, which is combinatorial in nature, when optimized with Genetic Algorithms. This is done considering a multitude of constraints of contradictory nature and the optimization criterion – overall cost, made up of costs with production, work force, inventory, and subcontracting. A case study of substantial size, used to develop the model, is presented, along with the genetic operators.Keywords: Aggregate Production Planning, Costs, and Optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25853498 Application Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Tool in Design of Aero Pumps Based on System Engineering
Authors: Z. Soleymani, M. Amirzadeh
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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was developed in 1960 in Japan and introduced in 1983 in America and Europe. The paper presents a real application of this technique in a way that the method of applying QFD in design and production aero fuel pumps has been considered. While designing a product and in order to apply system engineering process, the first step is identification customer needs then its transition to engineering parameters. Since each change in deign after production process leads to extra human costs and also increase in products quality risk, QFD can make benefits in sale by meeting customer expectations. Since the needs identified as well, the use of QFD tool can lead to increase in communications and less deviation in design and production phases, finally it leads to produce the products with defined technical attributes.Keywords: Customer voice, engineering parameters, QFD, gear pump.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17183497 Designing Software Quality Measurement System for Telecommunication Industry Using Object-Oriented Technique
Authors: Nor Fazlina Iryani Abdul Hamid, Mohamad Khatim Hasan
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Numbers of software quality measurement system have been implemented over the past few years, but none of them focuses on telecommunication industry. Software quality measurement system for telecommunication industry was a system that could calculate the quality value of the measured software that totally focused in telecommunication industry. Before designing a system, quality factors, quality attributes and quality metrics were identified based on literature review and survey. Then, using the identified quality factors, quality attributes and quality metrics, quality model for telecommunication industry was constructed. Each identified quality metrics had its own formula. Quality value for the system was measured based on the quality metrics and aggregated by referring to the quality model. It would classify the quality level of the software based on Net Satisfaction Index (NSI). The system was designed using object-oriented approach in web-based environment. Thus, existing of software quality measurement system was important to both developers and users in order to produce high quality software product for telecommunication industry.
Keywords: Software Quality, Quality Measurement, Object-oriented Approach, Net satisfaction Index.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24513496 Logistics Information and Customer Service
Authors: Š. Čemerková, M. Wilczková
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The paper deals with the importance of information flow for providing of defined level of customer service in the firms. Setting of the criteria for the selection and implementation of logistics information system is a prerequisite for ensuring of the flow of information in firms. The decision on the selection and implementation of logistics information system is linked to the investment costs and operating costs, which are included in the total logistics costs. The article also deals with the conclusions of the research focused on the logistics information system selection in companies in the Czech Republic.
Keywords: Customer service, information system, logistics, research.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16693495 Validation of Solar PV Inverter Harmonics Behaviour at Different Power Levels in a Test Network
Authors: Wilfred Fritz
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Grid connected solar PV inverters need to be compliant to standard regulations regarding unwanted harmonic generation. This paper gives an introduction to harmonics, solar PV inverter voltage regulation and balancing through compensation and investigates the behaviour of harmonic generation at different power levels. Practical measurements of harmonics and power levels with a power quality data logger were made, on a test network at a university in Germany. The test setup and test results are discussed. The major finding was that between the morning and afternoon load peak windows when the PV inverters operate under low solar insolation and low power levels, more unwanted harmonics are generated. This has a huge impact on the power quality of the grid as well as capital and maintenance costs. The design of a single-tuned harmonic filter towards harmonic mitigation is presented.
Keywords: Harmonics, power quality, pulse width modulation, total harmonic distortion.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18433494 A Comparative Analysis of E-Government Quality Models
Authors: Abdoullah Fath-Allah, Laila Cheikhi, Rafa E. Al-Qutaish, Ali Idri
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Many quality models have been used to measure egovernment portals quality. However, the absence of an international consensus for e-government portals quality models results in many differences in terms of quality attributes and measures. The aim of this paper is to compare and analyze the existing e-government quality models proposed in literature (those that are based on ISO standards and those that are not) in order to propose guidelines to build a good and useful e-government portals quality model. Our findings show that, there is no e-government portal quality model based on the new international standard ISO 25010. Besides that, the quality models are not based on a best practice model to allow agencies to both; measure e-government portals quality and identify missing best practices for those portals.
Keywords: E-government, portal, best practices, quality model, ISO, standard, ISO 25010, ISO 9126.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 36493493 The Aspect of the Human Bias in Decision Making within Quality Management Systems & LEAN Theory
Authors: Adriana Ávila Zúñiga Nordfjeld
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This paper provides a literature review to document the state of the art with respect to handling “human bias” in decision making within the established quality management systems (QMS) and LEAN theory, in the context of shipbuilding. Previous research shows that in shipbuilding there is a huge deviation from the planned man-hours under the project management to the actual man-hours used because of errors in planning and reworks caused by human bias in the information flows, among others. This reduces the efficiency, and increases operational costs. Thus, the research question is how QMS and LEAN handle biases. The findings show the gap in studying the integration of methods to handle human bias in decision making into QMS and lean, not only within shipbuilding, but in general. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed for researchers and practitioners in the areas of decision making, QMS and LEAN, and future research is suggested.
Keywords: Human bias, decision making, LEAN Shipbuilding, quality management systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29653492 Creating Maintenance Cost Model for University Buildings
Authors: AbdulLateef A. Olanrewaju, Arazi Idrus, Mohd F. Khamidi
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Maintenance costs incurred on building differs. The difference can be as results of the types, functions, age, building health index, size, form height, location and complexity of the building. These are contributing to the difficulty in maintenance development of deterministic maintenance cost model. This paper is concerns with reporting the preliminary findings on the creation of building maintenance cost distributions for universities in Malaysia. This study is triggered by the need to provide guides on maintenance costs distributions for decision making. For this purpose, a survey questionnaire was conducted to investigate the distribution of maintenance costs in the universities. Altogether, responses were received from twenty universities comprising both private and publicly owned. The research found that engineering services, roofing and finishes were the elements contributing the larger segment of the maintenance costs. Furthermore, the study indicates the significance of maintenance cost distribution as decision making tool towards maintenance management.Keywords: Performance matrix, university buildings, costmodel, Malaysia
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20373491 Evaluation of External Costs of Traffic Accident in Slovak Republic
Authors: Anna Dolinayova, Jozef Danis, Juraj Camaj
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The report deals with comparison of traffic accidents in Slovak republic in road and rail transport since 2009 until 2014, with evaluation of external costs and consequently with the possibilities of their internalization. The results of road traffic accidents analysis are realized in line with after-effects they have caused; in line with main cause, place of origin (within or out of town) and in accordance to age of accident´s victims and kind of injuries (easy, hard or fatal). Evaluation of individual after-effects is carried in terms of probability of traffic accidents occurrence.
Keywords: External costs, traffic accident, rail transport, road transport.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13583490 Power Quality Evaluation of Electrical Distribution Networks
Authors: Mohamed Idris S. Abozaed, Suliman Mohamed Elrajoubi
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Researches and concerns in power quality gained significant momentum in the field of power electronics systems over the last two decades globally. This sudden increase in the number of concerns over power quality problems is a result of the huge increase in the use of non-linear loads. In this paper, power quality evaluation of some distribution networks at Misurata - Libya has been done using a power quality and energy analyzer (Fluke 437 Series II). The results of this evaluation are used to minimize the problems of power quality. The analysis shows the main power quality problems that exist and the level of awareness of power quality issues with the aim of generating a start point which can be used as guidelines for researchers and end users in the field of power systems.
Keywords: Power Quality Disturbances, Power Quality Evaluation, Statistical Analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31973489 Continual Improvement with Integrated Management System
Authors: Sharareh Mirsaeidi Farahani , Gholamreza Chitsaz
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Management Systems are powerful tools for businesses to manage quality , environmental and occupational health and safety requirements . where once these systems were considered as stand alone control mechanisms , industry is now opting to increase the efficiency of these documented systems through a more integrated approach . System integration offers a significant step forward, where there are similarities between system components , reducing duplication and adminstration costs and increasing efficiency . At first , this paper reviews integrated management system structure and its benefits. The second part of this paper focuses on the one example implementation of such a system at Imam Khomeini Hospital and in final part of the paper will be discuss outcomes of that proccess .Keywords: environmental management , Integratedmanagement systems, occupational healt and safetymanagement , quality management.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32423488 Control Strategy of SRM Converters for Power Quality Improvement
Authors: Yogesh Pahariya, Rakesh Saxena, Biswaroop Sarkar
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The selection of control strategy depends on the converters of the drive including power, speed, performance and the possible system costs. A number of attempts were therefore made in recent times to develop novel power electronic converter structures for SRM drives, based on the utilization. Many of the converters with variable speed drives have no input power factor correction circuits. This results in harmonic pollution of the utility supply, which should be avoided. The effect of power factor variation in terms of harmonic content is also analyzed in this study. The proposed topologies were simulated using MATLAB / Simulink software package and the results are obtained.
Keywords: Harmonic Pollution, Power Electronic Converter, Power Quality, Simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25543487 The Urban Transportation Systems in Two Cities Located in the Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil
Authors: D. I. De Souza, G. P. Azevedo, R. Rocha
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The State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will hold two important events in the nearby future. In 2014 it will have the final game of the Football World Cup, and in 2016 it will be holding the Olympic Games. Therefore, the public transportation system (mainly buses) is of a major concern to the Rio de Janeiro State authorities-. The main objective of this work is to compare the quality of service of the bus companies operating in the cities of ItaperunaandCampos, both cities situated in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The outcome of thiscomparison, based on the opinion of the bus users, has shownthemdispleased with the quality of the service provided by the bus companies operating in both cities. It is urgent the need to find possible practical alternatives to minimize the consequences of the main problems detected in this work. With these practical alternatives available, we will be able to offer to the Rio de Janeiro State authorities- suggestions about possible solutions to the main problems identified in this survey, as well as the time of implantation and costs of these solutions.
Keywords: Public Transportation, Quality of Service, Riders' Opinion, Bus Companies, Practical Alternatives.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16493486 Perceived Quality of Regional Products in MS Region
Authors: M. Stoklasa, H. Starzyczna, K. Matusinska
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This article deals with the perceived quality of regional products in the Moravian-Silesian region in the Czech Republic. Research was focused on finding out what do consumers perceive as a quality product and what characteristics make a quality product. The data were obtained by questionnaire survey andanalysed by IBM SPSS. From the thousands of respondents the representative sample of 719 for MS region was created based on demographic factors of gender, age, education and income. The research analysis disclosed that consumers in MS region are still price oriented and that the preference of quality over price does not depend on regional brand knowledge.
Keywords: Regional brands, quality products, characteristics of quality, quality over price.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18403485 Strategies to Achieve Deep Decarbonization in Power Generation: A Review
Authors: Abdullah Alotaiq
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The transition to low-carbon power generation is essential for mitigating climate change and achieving sustainability. This process, however, entails considerable costs, and understanding the factors influencing these costs is critical. This is necessary to cater to the increasing demand for low-carbon electricity across heating, industry, and transportation sectors. A crucial aspect of this transition is identifying cost-effective and feasible paths for decarbonization, which is integral to global climate mitigation efforts. It is concluded that hybrid solutions, combining different low-carbon technologies, are optimal for minimizing costs and enhancing flexibility. These solutions also address the challenges associated with phasing out existing fossil fuel-based power plants and broadening the spectrum of low-carbon power generation options.
Keywords: Review, power generation, energy transition, decarbonization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 743484 Objective Performance of Compressed Image Quality Assessments
Authors: Ratchakit Sakuldee, Somkait Udomhunsakul
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Measurement of the quality of image compression is important for image processing application. In this paper, we propose an objective image quality assessment to measure the quality of gray scale compressed image, which is correlation well with subjective quality measurement (MOS) and least time taken. The new objective image quality measurement is developed from a few fundamental of objective measurements to evaluate the compressed image quality based on JPEG and JPEG2000. The reliability between each fundamental objective measurement and subjective measurement (MOS) is found. From the experimental results, we found that the Maximum Difference measurement (MD) and a new proposed measurement, Structural Content Laplacian Mean Square Error (SCLMSE), are the suitable measurements that can be used to evaluate the quality of JPEG200 and JPEG compressed image, respectively. In addition, MD and SCLMSE measurements are scaled to make them equivalent to MOS, given the rate of compressed image quality from 1 to 5 (unacceptable to excellent quality).
Keywords: JPEG, JPEG2000, objective image quality measurement, subjective image quality measurement, correlation coefficients.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2187