The Kano model is a technique for a better understanding of the customers’ requirements, thus increasing the customers’ satisfaction. The process of identifying the customers’ requirements and increasing the customers’ satisfaction, by improving the offerings, is costly for the companies. In order not to waste resources, companies should firstly identify who their target audience is, through a market research. When companies understand who their target audience is, they are able to identify their requirements, in order to try to meet them, and increase customers’ satisfaction. The process of segmentation and targeting, helps companies to save time, money and effort, since the messages are directly delivered to those who are their target audience, and are really interested. Moreover, the companies using the focus groups and in-depth interviews can collect target audience’ requirements, in order to later on meet those requirements and increase the customers’ satisfaction. Furthermore, the findings revealed that for the companies in the online payment industry it is crucial to have a good reputation and be trustworthy.

<p>Today, firms compete with services rather than goods. Large service organizations are beginning to use Six Sigma as continuous improvement tool. An important part of the Six Sigma methodology is the calculation of number of defects in the process, i.e. points outside the specification limits. Unlike goods quality, which can be measured objectively by number of defects, in service goods the setting up of specification limits is a complicated issue because it is marked by the use and expectations among the different customers. As Six Sigma was originally created for manufacturing, this crucial fact is not contemplated in the Six-Sigma roadmap Define- Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC).</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to develop a new model to help the Service Division, Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB to set the specification limits according to the customer expectations.</p><p>A review of relevant literature is used to develop a new integrated model with ideas from the Kano model, SERVQUAL, Taguchi loss function, Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) and a new model, the ”Trade-Off Importance”. A survey was carried out for 18 external customers and internal stakeholders.</p><p>The model has demonstrated its robustness and credibility to set the specification limits. Additionally it is a very powerful tool to set the strategic directions and for service quality measurement. As far as we know, this thesis is the first attempt to create a roadmap to set the specification limits in services. Researchers should find a proposed model to fill the research gap. From a managerial standpoint, the practical benefits in Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB, suggest a new way of communicating to customers.</p>

In 1931, judo became a compulsory subject in middle schools throughout Japan, over forty-years after Kanō Jigorō, judo's founder, had initially recommended it to government officials as something which should be included in the schools across the country. While this simple change in middle school curriculum may seem insignificant, it was in fact a watershed marking a new stage of the creation of an able and disciplined populace in Japan. This thesis will explain the significance of the inclusion of judo in schools by investigating the history of judo up to the point of its inclusion in schools, exploring the rhetoric of judo in terms of a larger discourse on "moral education" which was prevalent during the times, and finally an analysis of school judo—in terms of its physical practice as well as the ideology and rhetoric behind it—using the Foucauldian concept of "docile bodies."

In 1931, judo became a compulsory subject in middle schools throughout Japan, over forty-years after Kanō Jigorō, judo's founder, had initially recommended it to government officials as something which should be included in the schools across the country. While this simple change in middle school curriculum may seem insignificant, it was in fact a watershed marking a new stage of the creation of an able and disciplined populace in Japan. This thesis will explain the significance of the inclusion of judo in schools by investigating the history of judo up to the point of its inclusion in schools, exploring the rhetoric of judo in terms of a larger discourse on "moral education" which was prevalent during the times, and finally an analysis of school judo—in terms of its physical practice as well as the ideology and rhetoric behind it—using the Foucauldian concept of "docile bodies."

Today, firms compete with services rather than goods. Large service organizations are beginning to use Six Sigma as continuous improvement tool. An important part of the Six Sigma methodology is the calculation of number of defects in the process, i.e. points outside the specification limits. Unlike goods quality, which can be measured objectively by number of defects, in service goods the setting up of specification limits is a complicated issue because it is marked by the use and expectations among the different customers. As Six Sigma was originally created for manufacturing, this crucial fact is not contemplated in the Six-Sigma roadmap Define- Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC). The aim of this thesis is to develop a new model to help the Service Division, Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB to set the specification limits according to the customer expectations. A review of relevant literature is used to develop a new integrated model with ideas from the Kano model, SERVQUAL, Taguchi loss function, Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) and a new model, the ”Trade-Off Importance”. A survey was carried out for 18 external customers and internal stakeholders. The model has demonstrated its robustness and credibility to set the specification limits. Additionally it is a very powerful tool to set the strategic directions and for service quality measurement. As far as we know, this thesis is the first attempt to create a roadmap to set the specification limits in services. Researchers should find a proposed model to fill the research gap. From a managerial standpoint, the practical benefits in Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB, suggest a new way of communicating to customers.

The objective of this master thesis is to identify “key-drivers” embedded in customer satisfaction data. The data was collected by a large transportation sector corporation during five years and in four different countries. The questionnaire involved several different sections of questions and ranged from demographical information to satisfaction attributes with the vehicle, dealer and several problem areas. Various regression, correlation and cooperative game theory approaches were used to identify the key satisfiers and dissatisfiers. The theoretical and practical advantages of using the Shapley value, Canonical Correlation Analysis and Hierarchical Logistic Regression has been demonstrated and applied to market research.

This dissertation was made since we wanted to investigate the conception called quality within the school sector. What it means and if there is something that can give an explanation of how they  at look at the conception within the school sector. This will be the benchmark through the dissertation, trying to find out the most important things which might be equal to quality within the school. To find the answers of our questions we will read literature according to the subject. To get an increased understanding we will interview some people within the school efficacy, and give students a survey to fill in. The most important results from our investigation is to look at everything in its entirety, not only look at what grades students get. Even though this the most narrated sign of quality. There is so much more which is building quality of school. All other characteristics such as comfort, teachers etc. must work out too, to get grades and quality which is satisfying. By having these characteristics as good as possible you will get close as close as possible to an optimal solution to reach good quality. If you succeed with that, you will have a god quality.

Herzberg (1959) proposed a two-factor model, often named as two-factor theory when adopted by the following researches. Through measuring the level of dissatisfaction and satisfaction, he classified antecedents of work satisfaction into hygiene and motivator two type. While hygiene factors are variables which lead to dissatisfaction, motivators are variables correlated with satisfaction. In marketing area, Kano (1984) also proposed a similar concept, named two-way quality model. This model adopts both satisfaction and dissatisfaction concepts and, based on these concepts, he further classified quality properties into Must-be, Attractive and One-dimension three types. This implies that the separation of satisfaction with two dimensions allow researchers to understand how each antecedent functions. However, in past information system (IS) area, IS satisfaction was treated as a linear concept and measured with Likert or semantic differential scale. This approach lead to a direct consequence that identifying possible antecedents is possible but understanding the way they function is difficult. The purpose of this study is to develop a better approach to understand how different antecedents affect IS satisfaction. We attempt to adopt the confirmation concept in expectation-disconfirmation theory (EDT). Through measuring the level of confirmation (or disconfirmation) and satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), this study attempts to clarify how each antecedent generate effect under different contexts. This study attempts to achieve its purpose through a two-stage approach. We first used modified Delphi obtain various antecedents of IS satisfaction. In this stage, opinions from 29 scholars and experts resulted in 6 dimensions, contain 28 variables in total. In the next stage, we collected empirical data through survey to classify 28 variables into different types. We find the factors about the relation with user and IT are hygiene factor, e.g. system quality etc. The factors about the relation with user, IT and task are motivator, e.g. information quality etc. The factors about the relation with user, IT and organization are motivator and performance factor, e.g. management support and computer training are performance factors, MIS¡¦s service quality etc. are motivator. The result should provide insightful implications for both IS academia and practitioners.

The purpose of this work is to evaluate how a docking station can be more future proof, environmentally friendly and satisfy the customers’ needs more. The docking station in focus of this project is owned by LVI, and used with one of their cameras MagniLink S. When comparing the results of the new docking station and the current docking station, the new docking station is more future proof, environmentally friendly and satisfies the customers’ needs more. In the end it is established that following steps should be followed during the development of a docking station: -          Make sure that the cables are reliably fastened into the docking station and that the connectors can handle the docking force. -          Design to use more material with lower environmental impact and ensure that the material fulfils the product requirements and objectives. Use as small amount of material as possible. -          Prioritize the customers’ expressed and unexpressed needs as one of the highest priorities during the development process.

Convenience stores are playing a pivotal role in the contribution to profitability in the fuels retail environment. In order to increase market share that will lead to increased profits it is imperative to provide excellent customer service. Customer experience has been identified as the key construct in the modern retail environment to be addressed, in order to ensure a satisfied customer. It has been noted that customer experience is not measured in the convenience stores, but only at the pump stations and the carwash service points of Sasol garages. Sasol Oil has a fuels retail market share of 9% and it will be beneficial for the company to explore all avenues to increase market share since convenience stores contribute 25% towards the total profit of the company. A literature review was conducted to identify the important controllable elements of the total customer experience and the measuring instruments that can be used to measure these elements, which formed the basis of the empirical study. The measuring instruments discussed in the literature are Servqual, Kano and customised models. One of the dimensions of the total customer experience is service quality and a customised model was chosen as the measuring instrument of choice. Questionnaires were developed, based on the controllable elements of customer experience, and distributed via email and handouts. In total, 260 questionnaires were distributed with a response of 47.7%. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis were employed to analyse the data. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested using Cronbach alpha. Cronbach alpha values above the minimum requirements and a cumulative variance of only 47% was achieved. Conclusions were drawn from the empirical study and recommendations were made in the final chapter. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.