Search results for: Retail Inventory

Authors: Christopher C. Ihueze, Charles C. Okpala, Christian E. Okafor, Peter O. Ogbobe

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This paper focuses on robust design and optimization of industrial production wastes. Past literatures were reviewed to case study Clamason Industries Limited (CIL) - a leading ladder-tops manufacturer. A painstaking study of the firm-s practices at the shop floor revealed that Over-production, Waiting time, Excess inventory, and Defects are the major wastes that are impeding their progress and profitability. Design expert8 software was used to apply Taguchi robust design and response surface methodology in order to model, analyse and optimise the wastes cost in CIL. Waiting time and overproduction rank first and second in contributing to the costs of wastes in CIL. For minimal wastes cost the control factors of overproduction, waiting-time, defects and excess-inventory must be set at 0.30, 390.70, 4 and 55.70 respectively for CIL. The optimal value of cost of wastes for the months studied was 22.3679. Finally, a recommendation was made that for the company to enhance their profitability and customer satisfaction, they must adopt the Shingeo Shingo-s Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), which will immediately tackle the waste of waiting by drastically reducing their setup time.

Keywords: Excess-inventory, setup time, single minute exchange of dies, optimal value, over-production, robust design.

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Authors: A. Hortacsu, A. Tektas

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This paper aims to develop a model that assists the international retailer in selecting the country that maximizes the degree of fit between the retailer-s goals and the country characteristics in his initial internationalization move. A two-stage multi criteria decision model is designed integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Goal Programming. Ethical, cultural, geographic and economic proximity are identified as the relevant constructs of the internationalization decision. The constructs are further structured into sub-factors within analytic hierarchy. The model helps the retailer to integrate, rank and weigh a number of hard and soft factors and prioritize the countries accordingly. The model has been implemented on a Turkish luxury goods retailer who was planning to internationalize. Actual entry of the specific retailer in the selected country is a support for the model. Implementation on a single retailer limits the generalizability of the results; however, the emphasis of the paper is on construct identification and model development. The paper enriches the existing literature by proposing a hybrid multi objective decision model which introduces new soft dimensions i.e. perceived distance, ethical proximity, humane orientation to the decision process and facilitates effective decision making.

Keywords: Analytic hierarchy process, culture, ethics, goal programming, retail foreign market selection.

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Authors: Norazah Mohd Suki, Norbayah Mohd Suki

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This research aims to examine the influence of mediating effect of corporate social responsibility on the relationship between consumer awareness of green marketing and purchase intentions in the retail setting. Data from 200 valid questionnaires was analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach for the analysis of structural equation models with SmartPLS computer program version 2.0 as research data does not necessarily have a multivariate normal distribution and is less sensitive to sample size than other covariance approaches. PLS results revealed that corporate social responsibility partially mediated the link between consumer awareness of green marketing and purchase intentions of the product in the retail setting. Marketing managers should allocate a sufficient portion of their budget to appropriate corporate social responsibility activities by engaging in voluntary programs for positive return on investment leading to increased business profitability and long run business sustainability. The outcomes of the mediating effects of corporate social responsibility add a new impetus to the growing literature and preceding discoveries on consumer green marketing awareness, which is inadequately researched in the Malaysian setting. Direction for future research is also presented.

Keywords: Green marketing awareness, corporate social responsibility, partial least squares, purchase intention.

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Authors: Andrus Pedai, Igor Astrov

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In modern telecommunications industry, demand & supply chain management (DSCM) needs reliable design and versatile tools to control the material flow. The objective for efficient DSCM is reducing inventory, lead times and related costs in order to assure reliable and on-time deliveries from manufacturing units towards customers. In this paper the multi-rate expert system based methodology for developing simulation tools that would enable optimal DSCM for multi region, high volume and high complexity manufacturing environment was proposed.

Keywords: Demand & supply chain management, expert systems, inventory control, multi-rate control, performance metrics.

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Authors: Matthew J. Zagumny

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The current study reports an examination of the QUEST-25 (Q-Assessment of Undergraduate Epistemology and Scientific Thinking) online version for assessing the dispositional attitudes toward scientific thinking and intellectual curiosity among undergraduate students. The QUEST-25 consists of scientific thinking (SIQ-25) and intellectual curiosity (ICIQ-25), which were correlated in hypothesized directions with the Religious Commitment Inventory, Curiosity and Exploration Inventory, Belief in Science scale, and measures of academic self-efficacy. Additionally, concurrent validity was established by the resulting significant differences between those identifying the centrality of religious belief in their lives and those who do not self-identify as being guided daily by religious beliefs. This study demonstrates the utility of the QUEST-25 for research, evaluation, and theory development.

Keywords: Guided-inquiry learning, intellectual curiosity, psychometric assessment, scientific thinking.

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Authors: Renata Mekovec, Dijana Peras, Ruben Picek

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The advent of the Internet, mobile devices and social media is revolutionizing the experience of retail customers by linking multiple sources through various channels. Omnichannel retailing is a retailing that combines multiple channels to allow customers to seamlessly leverage all the distribution information online and offline while shopping. Therefore, today data are an asset more critical than ever for all organizations. Nonetheless, because of its heterogeneity through platforms, developers are currently facing difficulties in dealing with personal data. Considering the possibilities of omnichannel communication, this paper presents channel categorization that could enhance the customer experience of omnichannel center called hyper center. The purpose of this paper is fundamentally to describe the connection between the omnichannel hyper center and the customer, with particular attention to privacy protection. The first phase was finding the most appropriate channels of communication for hyper center. Consequently, a selection of widely used communication channels has been identified and analyzed with regard to the effect requirements for optimizing user experience. The evaluation criteria are divided into 3 groups: general, user profile and channel options. For each criterion the weight of importance for omnichannel communication was defined. The most important thing was to consider how the hyper center can make user identification while respecting the privacy protection requirements. The study carried out also shows what customer experience across digital networks would look like, based on an omnichannel approach owing to privacy protection principles.

Keywords: Personal data, privacy protection, omnichannel communication, retail.

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Authors: Bahareh Babaei, Hadi Bahrami Ehsan, Reza Reza-zadeh, Hossien Kaviani

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Judgment is affected by many agents and distortion in this assessment is unpreventable. Personality dimensions are among those factors that interfere with the distortion. In this research, the relations between personality dimensions of subject and his judgment on friends- personality dimensions is investigated. One-hundred friend couples completed both NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEOFFI) and Ahvaz Reality Distortion Inventory (ARDI) to make judgments about themselves and their friends. Observations show that judge-s Agreement and Neuroticism dimensions are impressed by reality distortion. On the other hand, this reality distortion interferes with one-s evaluation of his friend-s Agreement, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness dimensions. Conscientiousness with suppressive effect on judge-s other dimensions plays the irrelevant role on personality judgment. Therefore, observer-rating tools which are used as a conventional criterion seem to be not valid because of the reality distortion due to judge-s personality dimensions.

Keywords: Personality dimensions, reality distortion, judgmental accuracy.

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Authors: Bernd Scholz-Reiter, Christian Toonen, Jan Topi Tervo, Dennis Lappe

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Time series analysis often requires data that represents the evolution of an observed variable in equidistant time steps. In order to collect this data sampling is applied. While continuous signals may be sampled, analyzed and reconstructed applying Shannon-s sampling theorem, time-discrete signals have to be dealt with differently. In this article we consider the discrete-event simulation (DES) of job-shop-systems and study the effects of different sampling rates on data quality regarding completeness and accuracy of reconstructed inventory evolutions. At this we discuss deterministic as well as non-deterministic behavior of system variables. Error curves are deployed to illustrate and discuss the sampling rate-s impact and to derive recommendations for its wellfounded choice.

Keywords: discrete-event simulation, job-shop-system, sampling rate.

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Authors: Kok, M.O., Omar-Fauzee, M.S., Rosli, M.H.

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This study investigated the relationship between exercise imagery use and level of physical activity within a wide range of exercisers in Klang valley, Malaysia. One hundred and twenty four respondents (Mage = 28.92, SD = 9.34) completed two sets of questionnaires (Exercise Imagery Inventory and Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire) that measure the use of imagery and exercise frequency of participants. From the result obtained, exercise imagery is found to be significantly correlated to level of physical activity. Besides that, variables such as gender, age and ethnicity that may affect the use of imagery and exercise frequency were also being assessed in this study. Among all variables, only ethnicity showed significant difference in level of physical activity (p < 0.05). Findings in this study suggest that further investigation should be done on other variables such as socioeconomic, educational level, and selfefficacy that may affect the imagery use and frequency of physical activity among exercisers.

Keywords: Physical activity, exercise imagery, ExerciseImagery Inventory, Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire

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Authors: Deniz Deryakulu, Şener Büyüköztürk Hüseyin Özçınar

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The main purpose of this study was to determine the predictors of academic achievement of student Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) teachers with different learning styles. Participants were 148 student ICT teachers from Ankara University. Participants were asked to fill out a personal information sheet, the Turkish version of Kolb-s Learning Style Inventory, Weinstein-s Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, Schommer's Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, and Eysenck-s Personality Questionnaire. Stepwise regression analyses showed that the statistically significant predictors of the academic achievement of the accommodators were attitudes and high school GPAs; of the divergers was anxiety; of the convergers were gender, epistemological beliefs, and motivation; and of the assimilators were gender, personality, and test strategies. Implications for ICT teaching-learning processes and teacher education are discussed.

Keywords: Academic achievement, student ICT teachers, Kolb learning styles, experiential learning.

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Authors: Teresa Caswell

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Throughout the United States and within a myriad of demographic contexts, students of color experience the results of systemic inequities as an academic outcome. These disparities continue despite the increased resources provided to students and ongoing instruction-focused professional learning received by teachers. We postulated that lower levels of educator cultural competency are an underlying factor of why resource and instructional interventions are less effective than desired. Before implementing any type of intervention, however, cultural competency needed to be confirmed as a factor in schools demonstrating academic disparities between racial subgroups. A needs assessment was designed to measure levels of individual beliefs, including cultural competency, in both principals and teachers at three neighboring schools verified to have academic disparities. The resulting mixed method study utilized the Optimal Theory Applied to Identity Development (OTAID) model to measure cultural competency quantitatively, through self-identity inventory survey items, with teachers and qualitatively, through one-on-one interviews, with each school’s principal. A joint display was utilized to see combined data within and across school contexts. Each school was confirmed to have misalignments between principal and teacher levels of cultural competency beliefs while also indicating that a number of participants in the self-identity inventory survey may have intentionally skipped items referencing the term oppression. Additional use of the OTAID model and self-identity inventory in future research and across contexts is needed to determine transferability and dependability as cultural competency measures.

Keywords: Cultural competency, identity development, mixed method analysis, needs assessment.

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Authors: Sherine Beshara, Khaled S. El-Kilany, Noha M. Galal

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Supply chain management has become more challenging with the emerging trend of globalization and sustainability. Lately, research related to perishable products supply chains, in particular agricultural food products, has emerged. This is attributed to the additional complexity of managing this type of supply chains with the recently increased concern of public health, food quality, food safety, demand and price variability, and the limited lifetime of these products. Inventory management for agrifood supply chains is of vital importance due to the product perishability and customers- strive for quality. This paper concentrates on developing a simulation model of a real life case study of a two echelon production-distribution system for agri-food products. The objective is to improve a set of performance measures by developing a simulation model that helps in evaluating and analysing the performance of these supply chains. Simulation results showed that it can help in improving overall system performance.

Keywords: Agri-food supply chains, inventory model, modelling and Simulation, supply chain.

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Authors: Faraj El Dabee, Romeo Marian, Yousef Amer

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Just-In-Time (JIT) is a lean manufacturing tool, which provides the benefits of efficiency, and of minimizing unnecessary costs for many organisations. However, the risks arising from these benefits have been disregarded. These risks impact on system processes disrupting the whole supply chain. This paper proposes an inventory model that can simultaneously reduce costs and risks in JIT systems. This model is developed to ascertain an optimal ordering strategy for procuring raw materials by using regular multi-external and local backup suppliers to reduce the total cost of the products, and at the same time to reduce the risks arising from this cost reduction within production systems. Some results that will be illustrated in the second part of this paper are presented.

Keywords: Lean manufacturing, Just-in-Time (JIT), production system, cost-risk reduction, inventory model, eternal supplier, local backup supplier.

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Authors: Nitin Singh, Meng Ling, Talha Ahmed, Tianxia Zhao, Reinier van de Pol

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We propose the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL) as a viable alternative for optimizing supply chain management, particularly in scenarios with stochasticity in product demands. RL’s adaptability to changing conditions and its demonstrated success in diverse fields of sequential decision-making make it a promising candidate for addressing supply chain problems. We investigate the impact of demand fluctuations in a multi-product supply chain system and develop RL agents with learned generalizable policies. We provide experimentation details for training RL agents and a statistical analysis of the results. We study generalization ability of RL agents for different demand uncertainty scenarios and observe superior performance compared to the agents trained with fixed demand curves. The proposed methodology has the potential to lead to cost reduction and increased profit for companies dealing with frequent inventory movement between supply and demand nodes.

Keywords: Inventory Management, Reinforcement Learning, Supply Chain Optimization, Uncertainty.

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Authors: Kiriaki-Maria Fameli, Vasiliki D. Assimakopoulos, Vasiliki Kotroni

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The Greater Athens Area (GAA) faces photochemical and particulate pollution episodes as a result of the combined effects of local pollutant emissions, regional pollution transport, synoptic circulation and topographic characteristics. The area has undergone significant changes since the Athens 2004 Olympic Games because of large scale infrastructure works that lead to the shift of population to areas previously characterized as rural, the increase of the traffic fleet and the operation of highways. However, few recent modelling studies have been performed due to the lack of an accurate, updated emission inventory. The photochemical modelling system MM5/CAMx was applied in order to study the photochemical and particulate pollution characteristics above the GAA for two distinct ten-day periods in the summer of 2006 and 2010, where air pollution episodes occurred. A new updated emission inventory was used based on official data. Comparison of modeled results with measurements revealed the importance and accuracy of the new Athens emission inventory as compared to previous modeling studies. The model managed to reproduce the local meteorological conditions, the daily ozone and particulates fluctuations at different locations across the GAA. Higher ozone levels were found at suburban and rural areas as well as over the sea at the south of the basin. Concerning PM10, high concentrations were computed at the city centre and the southeastern suburbs in agreement with measured data. Source apportionment analysis showed that different sources contribute to the ozone levels, the local sources (traffic, port activities) affecting its formation.

Keywords: Photochemical modelling, urban pollution, greater Athens area, MM5/CAMx.

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Authors: Muh. Hisjam, Nancy Oktyajati, Wakhid A. Jauhari, Wahyudi Sutopo

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This research is intended to develop a raw material allocation model in timber processing industry in Perum Perhutani Unit I, Central Java, Indonesia. The model can be used to determine the quantity of allocation of timber between chain in the supply chain to select supplier considering factors that are log price and the distance. In determining the quantity of allocation of timber between chains in the supply chain, the model considers the optimal inventory in each chain. Whilst the optimal inventory is determined based on demand forecast, the capacity and safety stock. Problem solving allocation is conducted by developing linear programming model that aims to minimize the total cost of the purchase, transportation cost and storage costs at each chain. The results of numerical examples show that the proposed model can generate savings of the purchase cost of 20.84% and select suppliers with mileage closer.

Keywords: Allocation model, linear programming, purchase costs, storage costs, suppliers, transportation costs.

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Authors: G. C. Mahata, A. Goswami

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This paper deals with infinite time horizon fuzzy Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) models for deteriorating items with  stock dependent demand rate and nonlinear holding costs by taking deterioration rate θ0 as a triangular fuzzy number  (θ0 −δ 1, θ0, θ0 +δ 2), where 1 2 0 0 <δ ,δ <θ are fixed real numbers. The traditional parameters such as unit cost and ordering  cost have been kept constant but holding cost is considered to vary. Two possibilities of variations in the holding cost function namely, a non-linear function of the length of time for which the item is held in stock and a non-linear function of the amount of on-hand inventory have been used in the models. The approximate optimal solution for the fuzzy cost functions in both these cases have been obtained and the effect of non-linearity in holding costs is studied with the help of a numerical example.

Keywords: Inventory Model, Deterioration, Holding Cost, Fuzzy Total Cost, Extension Principle.

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Authors: Mark Joseph Quinto, Roan Beronilla, Guiller Damian, Eliza Camaso, Ronaldo Alberto

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Forest inventories are essential to assess the composition, structure and distribution of forest vegetation that can be used as baseline information for management decisions. Classical forest inventory is labor intensive and time-consuming and sometimes even dangerous. The use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) in forest inventory would improve and overcome these restrictions. This study was conducted to determine the possibility of using LiDAR derived data in extracting high accuracy forest biophysical parameters and as a non-destructive method for forest status analysis of San Manual, Pangasinan. Forest resources extraction was carried out using LAS tools, GIS, Envi and .bat scripts with the available LiDAR data. The process includes the generation of derivatives such as Digital Terrain Model (DTM), Canopy Height Model (CHM) and Canopy Cover Model (CCM) in .bat scripts followed by the generation of 17 composite bands to be used in the extraction of forest classification covers using ENVI 4.8 and GIS software. The Diameter in Breast Height (DBH), Above Ground Biomass (AGB) and Carbon Stock (CS) were estimated for each classified forest cover and Tree Count Extraction was carried out using GIS. Subsequently, field validation was conducted for accuracy assessment. Results showed that the forest of San Manuel has 73% Forest Cover, which is relatively much higher as compared to the 10% canopy cover requirement. On the extracted canopy height, 80% of the tree’s height ranges from 12 m to 17 m. CS of the three forest covers based on the AGB were: 20819.59 kg/20x20 m for closed broadleaf, 8609.82 kg/20x20 m for broadleaf plantation and 15545.57 kg/20x20m for open broadleaf. Average tree counts for the tree forest plantation was 413 trees/ha. As such, the forest of San Manuel has high percent forest cover and high CS.

Keywords: Carbon stock, forest inventory, LiDAR, tree count.

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Authors: M. I. Ribah, M. Jibir, Y. A. Bashar, S. S. Manga

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Food safety is a significant and growing public health problem in the world and Nigeria as a developing country, since food-borne diseases are important contributors to the huge burden of sickness and death of humans. In Nigeria, traditional ready-to-eat meat products (RTE-MPs) like balangu, tsire, guru and dried meat products like kilishi, dambun nama, banda, were reported to be highly appreciated because of their eating qualities. The consumption of these products was considered as safe due to the treatments that are usually involved during their production process. However, during processing and handling, the products could be contaminated by pathogens that could cause food poisoning. Therefore, a hazard identification for pathogenic bacteria on some traditional RTE-MPs was conducted in Kebbi and Sokoto States, Nigeria. A total of 116 RTE-MPs (balangu-38, kilishi-39 and tsire-39) samples were obtained from retail outlets and analyzed using standard cultural microbiological procedures in general and selective enrichment media to isolate the target pathogens. A six-fold serial dilution was prepared and using the pour plating method, colonies were counted. Serial dilutions were selected based on the prepared pre-labeled Petri dishes for each sample. A volume of 10-12 ml of molten Nutrient agar cooled to 42-45°C was poured into each Petri dish and 1 ml each from dilutions of 102, 104 and 106 for every sample was respectively poured on a pre-labeled Petri plate after which colonies were counted. The isolated pathogens were identified and confirmed after series of biochemical tests. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the presence of pathogens. The General Linear Model was used to analyze data on pathogen presence according to RTE-MPs and means were separated using the Tukey test at 0.05 confidence level. Of the 116 RTE-MPs samples collected, 35 (30.17%) samples were found to be contaminated with some tested pathogens. Prevalence results showed that Escherichia coli, salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus were present in the samples. Mean total bacterial count was 23.82×106 cfu/g. The frequency of individual pathogens isolated was; Staphylococcus aureus 18 (15.51%), Escherichia coli 12 (10.34%) and Salmonella 5 (4.31%). Also, among the RTE-MPs tested, the total bacterial counts were found to differ significantly (P < 0.05), with 1.81, 2.41 and 2.9×104 cfu/g for tsire, kilishi, and balangu, respectively. The study concluded that the presence of pathogenic bacteria in balangu could pose grave health risks to consumers, and hence, recommended good manufacturing practices in the production of balangu to improve the products’ safety.

Keywords: Ready-to-eat meat products, retail outlets, safety assessment, public health.

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Authors: Chris K. Y. Lo, Andy C. L. Yeung, T. C. Edwin Cheng

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ISO 9000 is the most popular and widely adopted meta-standard for quality and operational improvements. However, only limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of ISO 9000 on operational performance based on objective and longitudinal data. To reveal any causal relationship between the adoption of ISO 9000 and operational performance, we examined the timing and magnitude of change in time-based performance as a result of ISO 9000 adoption. We analyzed the changes in operating cycle, inventory days, and account receivable days prior and after the implementation of ISO 9000 in 695 publicly listed manufacturing firms. We found that ISO 9000 certified firms shortened their operating cycle time by 5.28 days one year after the implementation of ISO 9000. In the long-run (3 years after certification), certified firms showed continuous improvement in time-based efficiency, and experienced a shorter operating cycle time of 11 days than that of non-certified firms. There was an average of 6.5% improvement in operating cycle time for ISO 9000 certified firms. Both inventory days and account receivable days showed similar significant improvements after the implementation of ISO 9000, too.

Keywords: ISO 9000, Operating Cycle, Time-based efficiency.

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Authors: Victor Birikorang Danquah

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Ghana's primary energy supply is heavily reliant on petroleum, biomass, and hydropower. Currently, Ghana gets its energy from hydropower (Akosombo and Bui), thermal power plants powered by crude oil, natural gas, and diesel, solar power, and imports from La Cote d'Ivoire. Until the early 2000s, large hydroelectric dams dominated Ghana's electricity generation. Due to the unreliable weather patterns, Ghana increased its reliance on thermal power. Thermal power contributes the highest percentage in terms of electricity generation in Ghana and is predominantly supplied by Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Ghana's electricity industry operates the corporate utility model as its business model. This model is typically 'vertically integrated', with a single corporation selling the majority of power generated by its generation assets to its retail business, which then sells the electricity to retail market consumers. The corporate utility model has a straightforward value proposition that is based on increasing the number of energy units sold. The unit volume business model drives the entire energy value chain to increase throughput, locking system users into unsustainable practices. This report uses the qualitative research approach to explore the electricity industry in Ghana. There is the need for increasing renewable energy such as wind and solar in the electricity generation. The research recommends two critical business models for the penetration of renewable energy in Ghana's power sector. The first model is the peer-to-peer electricity trading model which relies on a software platform to connect consumers and generators in order for them to trade energy directly with one another. The second model is about encouraging local energy generation, incentivizing optimal time-of-use behaviour, and allow any financial gains to be shared among the community members.

Keywords: business model innovation, electricity generation, renewable energy, solar energy, sustainability, wind energy

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Authors: S. Hamid Mirmohammadi, Shahrazad Tamjidzad

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This paper is concerned with the single-item continuous review inventory system in which demand is stochastic and discrete. The budget consumed for purchasing the ordered items is not restricted but it incurs extra cost when exceeding specific value. The unit purchasing price depends on the quantity ordered under the all-units discounts cost structure. In many actual systems, the budget as a resource which is occupied by the purchased items is limited and the system is able to confront the resource shortage by charging more costs. Thus, considering the resource shortage costs as a part of system costs, especially when the amount of resource occupied by the purchased item is influenced by quantity discounts, is well motivated by practical concerns. In this paper, an optimization problem is formulated for finding the optimal (r, Q) policy, when the system is influenced by the budget limitation and a discount pricing simultaneously. Properties of the cost function are investigated and then an algorithm based on a one-dimensional search procedure is proposed for finding an optimal (r, Q) policy which minimizes the expected system costs.

Keywords: (r, Q) policy, Stochastic demand, backorders, limited resource, quantity discounts.

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Authors: Charalambos C. Cleanthous, Ryan Sain, Tabitha Black, Stephen Vera, Suzanne Milton

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A concern when administering questionnaires is whether the participant is providing information that is accurate. The results may be invalid because the person is trying to present oneself in an unrealistic positive manner referred to as ‘faking good’, or in an unrealistic negative manner known as ‘faking bad’. The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) was used to assess commercial pilots’ responses on the two subscales of the BIDR: impression management (IM) and self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) that result in high or low scores. Thus, the BIDR produces four valid profiles: IM low and SDE low, IM high and SDE low, IM low and SDE high, and IM high and SDE high. The various profiles were used to compare the respondents’ answers to crew resource management (CRM) items developed from the USA Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) guidelines for CRM composition and training. Of particular interest were the results on the IM subscale. The comparisons between those scoring high (lying or faking) versus those low on the IM suggest that there were significant differences regarding their views of the various dimensions of CRM. One of the more disconcerting conclusions is that the high IM scores suggest that the pilots were trying to impress rather than honestly answer the questions regarding their CRM training and practice.

Keywords: USA commercial pilots, crew resource management, faking, social desirability.

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Authors: Rajendra M. Sonar

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The recent trend has been using hybrid approach rather than using a single intelligent technique to solve the problems. In this paper, we describe and discuss a framework to develop enterprise solutions that are backed by intelligent techniques. The framework not only uses intelligent techniques themselves but it is a complete environment that includes various interfaces and components to develop the intelligent solutions. The framework is completely Web-based and uses XML extensively. It can work like shared plat-form to be accessed by multiple developers, users and decision makers.

Keywords: Intelligent System Development Framework, WebbasedIntelligent Systems, Retail Banking.

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Authors: R. A. Harun, N. M. Ishak, N. Yusoff, S. Amat

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This quantitative research is aimed to identify the level of leadership quality and emotional intelligence for members of Students' Representatives Council (SRC) of Malaysian Public Universities (MPU). The variables include the leadership quality and emotional quotient (EQ). 238 SRC members in MPU were selected as subjects of the study. Data were collected using two instruments i.e. Malaysian Emotional Quotient Inventory (MEQI) and Ayu-Noriah Leadership Audit Trail Inventory (Ayu-Noriah, LATI). Data were analyzed using descriptive (mean and percentage). Research findings showed that the subjects scored highly in four out of five EQ domains (Self-Regulations, Self-Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills). However, the subjects scored medium to low in Self-Awareness. Analysis on the sub domains (a total of 28 sub domains) showed that the subjects scored high in 17 sub domains for EQ, whilst another 11 were at medium level. The overall analysis indicates that the subjects have high level of EQ. Findings on their leadership qualities showed that they obtained high scores in all seven factors that were measured i.e. Strategy and Leadership Model, Recruit, Review Performance and Honor, Deploy Strategically, Developing, Engage and Retain and Built HR Capabilities/Line Ownership. The overall score for leadership qualities was found to be high.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, leadership, students.

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Authors: Lidia Martínez Murillo

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Since the 1990s the American furniture industry faces a transition period. Manufacturers, one of its most important actors made its entrance into the retail industry. This shift has had deep consequences not only for the American furniture industry as a whole, but also for other international furniture industries, especially the Chinese. The present work aims to analyze this actor based on the distinction provided by the Global Commodity Chain Theory. It stresses its characteristics, structure, operational way and importance for both the U.S. and the Chinese furniture industries.

Keywords: M&RC, blended strategy, U.S. furniture industry, Chinese furniture industry.

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Authors: Lidia Martínez Murillo

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Since the 1990s the American furniture industry faces a transition period. Manufacturers, one of its most important actors made its entrance into the retail industry. This shift has had deep consequences not only for the American furniture industry as a whole, but also for other international furniture industries, especially the Chinese. The present work aims to analyze this actor based on the distinction provided by the Global Commodity Chain Theory. It stresses its characteristics, structure, operational way and importance for both the U.S. and the Chinese furniture industries.

Keywords: M&RC, blended strategy, U.S. furniture industry, Chinese furniture industry.

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Authors: Blandína Šramová, Gabriel Bianchi, Barbara Lášticová, Katarína Fichnová, Anežka Hamranová

Abstract:

The contribution deals with analysis of identity style at adolescents (N=463) at the age from 16 to 19 (the average age is 17,7 years). We used the Identity Style Inventory by Berzonsky, distinguishing three basic, measured identity styles: informational, normative, diffuse-avoidant identity style and also commitment. The informational identity style influencing on personal adaptability, coping strategies, quality of life and the normative identity style, it means the style in which an individual takes on models of authorities at self-defining were found to have the highest representation in the studied group of adolescents by higher scores at girls in comparison with boys. The normative identity style positively correlates with the informational identity style. The diffuse-avoidant identity style was found to be positively associated with maladaptive decisional strategies, neuroticism and depressive reactions. There is the style, in which the individual shifts aside defining his personality. In our research sample the lowest score represents it and negatively correlates with commitment, it means with coping strategies, thrust in oneself and the surrounding world. The age of adolescents did not significantly differentiate representation of identity style. We were finding the model, in which informational and normative identity style had positive relationship and the informational and diffuseavoidant style had negative relationship, which were determinated with commitment. In the same time the commitment is influenced with other outside factors.

Keywords: Identity Style Inventory, Informational IdentityStyle, Normative Identity Style, Diffuse-Avoidant Style, IdentityCommitment.

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Authors: Saeedeh Shafiee Nahrkhalaji

Abstract:

Metacognitive knowledge increases EFL students’ ability to be successful learners. Although this relationship has been investigated by a number of scholars, EFL teachers’ explicit awareness of their cognitive knowledge has not been sufficiently explored. The aim of this study was to examine the role of EFL teachers’ metacognitive knowledge in their pedagogical performance. Furthermore, the role played by years of their academic education and teaching experience was also studied. Fifty female EFL teachers were selected. They completed Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) that assessed six components of metacognition including procedural knowledge, declarative knowledge, conditional knowledge, planning, evaluating, and management strategies. Near the end of the academic semester, the students of each class filled in ‘the Language Teacher Characteristics Questionnaire’ to evaluate their teachers’ pedagogical performance. Four elements of MAI, declarative knowledge, planning, evaluating, and management strategies were found to be significantly correlated with EFL teachers’ pedagogical success. Significant correlation was also established between metacognitive knowledge and EFL teachers’ years of academic education and teaching experience. The findings obtained from this research have contributing implication for EFL teacher educators. The discussion concludes by setting out directions for future research.

Keywords: Metacognotive Knowledge, Pedagogical Performance, Language Teacher Characteristics Questionnaire, Metacognitive Awareness Inventory.

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Authors: Pirom Thangchitpianpol, Suttipong Jumroonrut

Abstract:

This research investigates the distribution of food demand for animal food and the optimum amount of that food production at minimum cost. The data consist of customer purchase orders for the food of laying hens, price of food for laying hens, cost per unit for the food inventory, cost related to food of laying hens in which the food is out of stock, such as fine, overtime, urgent purchase for material. They were collected from January, 1990 to December, 2013 from a factory in Nakhonratchasima province. The collected data are analyzed in order to explore the distribution of the monthly food demand for the laying hens and to see the rate of inventory per unit. The results are used in a stochastic linear programming model for aggregate planning in which the optimum production or minimum cost could be obtained. Programming algorithms in MATLAB and tools in Linprog software are used to get the solution. The distribution of the food demand for laying hens and the random numbers are used in the model. The study shows that the distribution of monthly food demand for laying has a normal distribution, the monthly average amount (unit: 30 kg) of production from January to December. The minimum total cost average for 12 months is Baht 62,329,181.77. Therefore, the production planning can reduce the cost by 14.64% from real cost.

Keywords: Animal food, Stochastic linear programming, Production planning, Demand Uncertainty.

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