When a permanent fault occurs in distribution systems, the fault location should be detected, isolated and the un-faulted but out of service areas have to be restored. The outage areas can be minimized by the switching operation based on the system load characteristics. By integrating the Outage Management Information System (OMIS), the connectivity of customers and feeder/transformer, the Customer Information System (CIS), the Automated mapping /Facility Management (AM/FM) with the customer load patterns, the hourly load demand and the service priority index of each distribution feeder and each service zone are calculated. By this way, the service restoration of the most power demand and customers can be obtained for the fault contingency of distribution system. To enhance the effectiveness of switching operation for fault contingency of distribution system, the Expert System with CLIPS has been developed by considering the operation rules in the application software program. A underground distribution system with 26 feeders in Kaohsiung District of Taiwan Power Company has been selected for computer simulation to solve the proper switching operation by taking into account the service priority of customers. It has been verified that the proposed methodology can restore the customer power service effectively by Expert System with distribution operation rules.

­^¤åºK­n At the beginning of the 1990s, our government has invested aggressively into the field of Semiconductors and at the same time provided many opportunities and trainings for the professionals. This has enabled for the top professionals to excel in their respective field of work thus cultivating many outstanding manufacturers for the industry. Today, majority source of the automation equipments in the field of Semiconductors remains largely imported. These preferences lead to a higher cost ratio and cost effectiveness and has provided an uneven playing ground for our native corporations ready to take the overseas player head-on. Hereby, this report will focus on the nature of the product life cycle of the field to provide an insight to a suitable business and service model for our native corporations specializing in the mid and backend of Semiconductors to conform to the rigorous demand of the industry. The report also looks into individual corporations¡¦ competitiveness and their current roles in the supply chain for the industry. Their strategy and business model will be discussed and recommendations provided to improve their current practices to fulfill the evolving markets. The proposals and recommended business model can also be applied to other industries where the electro-optical industry and the next highly anticipated environmental friendly products industries could be adopt in the near future.

<p>Bakgrund: Företag som huvudsakligen agerar med Internet som kontaktkanal möter sällan eller aldrig sina kunder fysiskt, vilket leder till ett behov av att komplettera frånvaron av fysisk kontakt med andra former av kommunikation. Som lösning på detta problem har företag börjat tillämpa personligt anpassad e-postmarknadsföring vid kontakt med konsumenter för att bättre tillgodose kunders behov av relevant information. Samtidigt som personlig anpassning ger möjligheten att erbjuda kunden mervärde och öka kundens lojalitet kan också kunden uppfatta tekniken som falsk och konstruerad. Otillräcklig kunskap om konsumenters värderingar i frågor som berör personlig anpassning av e-post kan leda till att företag får svårt att knyta sig till potentiella kunder samt behålla befintliga kunder.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka till vilken grad e-handelskonsumenter föredrar personligt anpassade e-postutskick, hur e-postutskick bör framställas samt vilken betydelse konsumentens relation till företaget har. Detta ska resultera i rekommendationer till företag som genom personlig anpassning vill utveckla sin e-handelsstrategi.</p><p>Metod: För att kunna bekräfta eller förkasta de uppsatta hypoteserna tar uppsatsen ett hypotetiskt deduktivt angreppssätt. En kvantitativ enkätundersökning används för att samla in empirisk data vilken har analyserats statistiskt med hjälp av t-test. Undersökningens population omfattar ett e-handelsföretags kunder.</p><p>Resultat: Uppsatsens empiriska studie visar att e-handelskonsumenter av manligt kön föredrar personligt anpassade e-postutskick framför opersonliga e postutskick. I allmänhet uppfattas personlig anpassning som relevanshö-jande teknik, särskilt om den personliga anpassningen är genuin och om konsumenten tidigare uttryckligen angett sitt intresse för e-postutskicket. I uppsatsen studeras våra resultat närmare för att identifiera i vilka situationer som e-handlarnas värderingar skiljer sig åt. Företag bör beakta att kunden är mer öppen för personlig anpassning av e postutskick när denne har kontroll över hur företaget tillämpar den personliga anpassningen. Demografiska faktorer som utbildningsnivå och till viss del geografisk lokalisering har ock-så betydelse för hur personlig anpassning uppfattas.</p> / <p>Background: Companies that primarily act with Internet as channel of contact meet their customers in real life very rarely or never, which creates a need to complement the absence of physical contact with other forms of communication. As a solution to this problem companies have begun to implement personalized e-mail marketing in order to better satisfy customers’ need for relevant information. Still, as personalization gives the possibility to offer the customer added value while increasing the customer loyalty, the technology can also be perceived as deceitful and artificial. Insufficient knowledge regarding the customers’ perception of issues that concern personalization can result in difficulties for companies to attract new and retain existing customers.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to study to what extent e-consumers prefer personalized e-mail marketing, how e-mail campaigns should be created and what significance the relation has between consumers and companies. This is expected to result in recommendations to e-tailors that want to develop their business through the use of personalization in their e-mail marketing efforts.</p><p>Method: In order to be able to verify or to falsify the set hypotheses, the research takes a hypothetical deductive approach. A quantitative survey has been used to collect the empirical data which has been statistically analyzed with the use of t-tests. The research population consists of the customers of an e-tailor.</p><p>Conclusions: The empirical study shows that male e-consumers prefer personalized e mail marketing more than non-personalized e-mail marketing. Personalization is in general perceived as a technique to increase the level of relevance of the e-mail, thus being looked upon as added value, especially when the technique is genuine and if the consumer explicitly has given his or hers area of interest for the e-mail campaigns. In the thesis the research results are studied closer in order to investigate in which situations opinions part. Companies should also consider that customers are more open towards personalized e-mail marketing when she or he has control over how the companies apply personalization. Demographic factors such as level of education and to a certain extent geographical location also have an impact on how personalization is perceived.</p>

<p>In a fast moving environment and in a globalized market, companies are searching efficient distribution methods that enable broad product assortment, lower level of inventories, shorter customer order fulfilment, lower transportation costs in order to achieve a more efficient procurement process and a improved customer service. This paper will focus on a new solution in supply chain design to solve these trade-offs between management cost cutting and higher customer level within markets characterized by an increasing globalisation. Merge in transit (MIT) distribution method allows companies to reduce inventory and transportation costs while guaranteeing a high customer perceived service level. It is a new technique in which goods shipped from several supply locations are consolidated into one final customer delivery. The company needs to coordinate shipments so that they arrive simultaneously and goods can be bundled and shipped immediately to the final customer for arrival on due date. Economical benefits and drawbacks will be investigated from a supply chain prospective.</p>

För att vara konkurrenskraftig på marknaden behöver företag hitta och använda möjliga resurser för förbättringar. En grund för ett kostnadseffektivt och kundtillgängligt logistiksystem är transporter. Det är viktigt att ha fokus på både interna och externa transporter när processer ska optimeras och via detta erhålla lägre kostnader. Den enskilt största logistikkostnaden i många företag är transportkostnaden.   Studien har utförts på ett företag som är verksamma inom industrin. Fallstudieföretaget har ett fokusområde inom transporter, där syftet är att utveckla verksamheten inom specialtransporter. Denna studie ämnar att studera detta fokusområde. Med att effektivisera specialtransporter menas att öka kundservicen och minska kostnaderna. Specialtransporter innebär mestadels interna transporter, men externa transporter förekommer också. Specialtransporterna utför bland annat transporter av maskiner, maskindelar och kemikalier. Dessa är inte direkt kopplade till produktionen. Idag utförs beställningar av specialtransporter via telefon till ett orderkontor.   Syftet med studien är att identifiera faktorer som har betydelse för att erhålla effektiva specialtransporter. Detta ska ligga till grund för att ge rekommendationer till fallstudieföretaget för fortsatt arbete med effektivisering av specialtransporter. För att besvara syftet har litteraturstudier, observationer, dataanalys, intervjuer och benchmarking genomförts. Via litteraturstudierna har betydande faktorer för att erhålla effektiva specialtransporter identifierats. Utifrån övriga metoder har ett nuläge hos fallstudieföretaget kunnat beskrivas och genom detta har slöserier och förbättringsområden identifierats. Några betydande faktorer för att erhålla effektiva specialtransporter som har uppmärksammats i litteraturen är information, effektiv logistik och standardisering. De identifierade slöserierna hos fallstudieföretaget är bland annat bristande kommunikation, information och utnyttjande av resurser. Dessa identifierade slöserier på fallstudieföretaget överensstämmer väl med de betydande faktorerna som framkom från litteraturen. De betydande faktorerna som presenteras i denna studie kan företag ha i åtanke när de vill erhålla effektiva specialtransporter. / To be competitive in the market, companies need to find and use available resources for improvements. Transport is a source to cost-effective and customer accessible logistics system. Both internal and externals transports are important to focus on when processes are optimized in order to obtain lower costs. The main logistics cost in many companies constitutes of transports.   This case study has been conducted in an industrial company. This study intends to make the transports more effective, through better customer service and reduced costs. The transports that have been studied are not directly linked to the production. When a transport is needed an order is made by telephone.   The purpose of the study is to identify significant factors for effective special transports. The factors form a foundation for recommendations to the case company in the future work to have more effective special transports. To answer the purpose literature studies, observations, data analysis, interviews and benchmarking have been carried out. Some significant factors for effective special transports are information, effective logistics and standardization. Some identified waste in the case company is lack of communication and information and the utilization of resources. The significant factors have a correspondence with the identified waste.

The main objectives of this study are to demonstrate the significance of customer service quality in the banking sector of Cyprus in order to enable managers in banking organisations to identify the determinants of customer perceptions of service quality and ultimately to provide a method to measure the levels of service quality offered. Therefore, the objectives of this thesis are: • To evaluate the SERVQUAL model and assess whether it can be applied in the context of the Cypriot banking industry, and consequently establish a reliable and valid service quality measurement instrument for Cypriot banks, and • To identify the level of service from banks in Cyprus and detect ways to improve the service quality offered. This study evaluates SERVQUAL dimensions, and more specifically the perceptions side of the instrument, and modifies it through an extensive and in-depth analysis of the literature review published on the topic of service quality and through interviews with bank experts and quality specialists so as to assess its applicability to the banking industry in Cyprus. As a result of this analysis, a modified version of the perceptions’ side of SERVQUAL was constructed as a measurement scale of service quality in the banking sector of Cyprus. Data were collected through customer surveys conducted outside bank branches. Subsequently, the collected data were analysed through tools such as factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and internal consistency measurement. This analysis helped to prove the validity and reliability of the modified instrument used to measure service quality and revealed the dimensional structure of the service quality construct in the Cypriot banking sector. The major findings of this study suggest a four-dimensional construct derived from 23 items in the questionnaire. These dimensions are employee proficiency, convenience, professionalism and assurance. All four factors are positive and significant predictors of service quality. This result is different from the SERVQUAL and the SERVPERF models as both indicate five dimensions composed of 22 items. The reliability and validity of the scale(s) in this study were fully supported. These results lead to several implications for both researchers and practitioners. For theorists, the results of this study can be used as foundations for further studies, for questionnaire scale development, to further support the use of a single scale and to raise the issue of the non-existence of the ‘tangibles’ dimension, which is not fully discussed in the literature and should be tested in future studies as well. For managers and practitioners this study offers much support for the importance of employees and for a continuous investment in service quality programmes. It also suggests incorporating service quality measurement into branch performance measurement. Finally, the results obtained in this study pose significant challenges to managers and support the idea that practitioners should have a comprehensive view of service quality in banking organizations to accurately measure customer perceptions of service quality.

Defining and measuring the quality of customer service has been a major challenge for business-to-business marketers. This research addresses the question whether an established instrument for consumer markets (SERVQUAL) can be used for understanding the role of customer service in the European nylon intermediates industry. To accomplish this objective, an in-depth literature review is accomplished followed by several expert panels adopting the instrument slightly. Based on a survey sample of 110 industry members collected with the 'drop and collect technique' the appropriateness of the tool to verify the anticipated structure is examined using reliability tests as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The findings suggest that even though various criteria for reliability and validity are met, the five-dimensional structure of the instrument cannot be recovered. The research questions the usefulness of the instrument for the European nylon intermediates industry despite it being originally anticipated to be applicable. However, the research emphasises that the instrument is a useful indicator for understanding the role of customer service based on individual items rather than on the instrument's dimensionality. It is demonstrated how the implementation in the nylon intermediates industry enables an organization to develop a greater awareness of customer service quality and how an enterprise gains an initial instrument to comprehend and improve this element of the offering. The thesis concludes by linking the results of the research with the discussion on service-dominant logic.

The high-tech industry is an extremely fast-paced and highly competitive one with constant changes and with companies entering and exiting the playing field in a matter of months. Within this ruthless environment Dell Inc. emerged as a singular player in January 1984 and rose to be the world’s largest personal computer maker in just seventeen years in 2001. One has to ask what made Dell so special and how did Michael Dell make his fortune from his dormitory room at the University of Texas at Austin. Furthermore, what explains Dell’s decline from its number one position in the world in 2001 to barely number three now as it stands behind Acer and clearly behind the current industry leader Hewlett-Packard? This paper is an attempt to take the reader through the history of the rise and fall of Dell. More importantly, it seeks to identify the weaknesses as well as strengths, and advantages as well disadvantages of the business model of this company. Finally, the paper will outline the necessary steps that Dell must take to reclaim the crown of the largest and most successful computer manufacturer in the world. / text

In a fast moving environment and in a globalized market, companies are searching efficient distribution methods that enable broad product assortment, lower level of inventories, shorter customer order fulfilment, lower transportation costs in order to achieve a more efficient procurement process and a improved customer service. This paper will focus on a new solution in supply chain design to solve these trade-offs between management cost cutting and higher customer level within markets characterized by an increasing globalisation. Merge in transit (MIT) distribution method allows companies to reduce inventory and transportation costs while guaranteeing a high customer perceived service level. It is a new technique in which goods shipped from several supply locations are consolidated into one final customer delivery. The company needs to coordinate shipments so that they arrive simultaneously and goods can be bundled and shipped immediately to the final customer for arrival on due date. Economical benefits and drawbacks will be investigated from a supply chain prospective.

Problema: Kiekvienas klientas nori gauti kokybiškas ir nepriekaištingas paslaugas, svarbu klientui kaip yra pateikiama paslauga, ir ar ji atitinka jų lūkesčius. Norint patenkinti klientų lūkesčius, visų pirma, svarbu juos tinkamai aptarnauti, išsiaiškinti jų poreikius. Tačiau ne visada klientas lieka patenkintas suteiktu aptarnavimu. Kokios yra klientų aptarnavimo kokybės tobulinimo galimybės, kad atitiktų klientų lūkesčius? Darbo tikslas – nustatyti klientų aptarnavimo kokybės tobulinimo galimybes Kauno miesto kelionių agentūrose. Darbo objektas – klientų aptarnavimo kokybės tobulinimo galimybės Kauno miesto kelionių agentūrose. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Pateikti kokybės sampratos esmę; 2. Išskirti paslaugų kokybės vertinimo parametrus bei metodus ir įvertinti jų privalumus bei trūkumus; 3. Nustatyti klientų pagrindines aptarnavimo klaidas bei jų tobulinimo galimybes turizmo srityje; 4. Sukurti klientų aptarnavimo kokybės tobulinimo galimybių vertinimo modelį; 5. Pagal sukurtą modelį įvertinti klientų aptarnavimo kokybę Kauno miesto kelionių agentūrose bei jų tobulinimo galimybes. Magistro darbe siekiama apibendrinti klientų aptarnavimo kokybę bei jos tobulinimo galimybes Kauno miesto kelionių agentūrose. Išanalizavus kliento aptarnavimo kokybės įvertinimo metodikos mokslinius sprendimus, atliktas klientų aptarnavimo kokybės tobulinimo galimybių tyrimas Kauno miesto kelionių agentūrose. Remiantis įvairių užsienio autorių išanalizuota literatūra galima daryti išvadą, kad... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The problem: Every client wants to get high quality and impeccable service, it is important to the customer as the service is provided, and whether it meets their expectations. To meet customers' expectations, in particular, it is important to properly handle them, ascertain their needs. However, it is not always the customer remains satisfied with obtaining a service. So the need to seek answers to the question: what is the customer service quality improvement opportunities? Research aim - to improve the quality of customer service capabilities in Kaunas travel agencies. Research object - customer service quality improvement opportunities in Kaunas travel agencies. Research tasks: 1. The quality of the concept of the essence; 2. To distinguish the quality of service parameters and the assessment methods and assess their strengths and weaknesses; 3. Identify the key customer service mistakes and improvement opportunities in the tourism field; 4. Create customer service quality improvement opportunities for the assessment model; 5. In the developed model to assess the quality of customer service in Kaunas travel agencies and their development potential. Master's work aims to summarize the theory of customer service quality and its development opportunities in Kaunas travel agencies. The analysis of the customer service quality evaluation methodology of scientific decisions, made in customer service quality improvement opportunities for study in Kaunas travel agencies... [to full text]