Search results

Preface The functions of business divide into several areas and the general focus of this book is on one of the most important although least understood of these—DISTRIBUTION. The particular focus is on reviewing current practice in distribution costing and on attempting to push the frontiers back a little by suggesting some new approaches to overcome previously defined shortcomings.

THE PROBLEM of maintaining efficiency in an expanding industrial organisation is a constant management problem. A new extension may have to be provided to house a new machine or new production methods and this may mean the installation of different machines or a rearrangement of existing equipment. However it is not all that often that a company has to look at itself critically and to make a decision that the complete structure of the organisation requires changing. Just over a year ago Tecalemit (Engineering) Ltd. at Plymouth decided to do just this on a product orientated basis. The main objectives of the reorganisation were to shorten lines of communication from top management to the shop floor, to build up specialist teams who were fully conversant with their own product range and generally to improve efficiency both internally and in service to the customer. The reorganisation involved considerable movement of machines and personnel within the Plymouth factory, all of which took place during December 1966 and January 1967. That this was effective with no hinderance to Sales and Service must be due to sound organisation together with excellent management/staff relations.

Automobile maintenance garages require varieties of equipment for their smooth functioning. However, the purchase of the right equipment from alternatives is a tough task as it depends on several economic, technical, and environmental considerations, etc. Moreover, there are different sellers for such equipment, whose features would be satisfying the purchase criteria in varying levels or degrees. Hence, this purchase decision becomes a complex decision-making problem.

An integrated multi-criteria decision-making approach that includes the combination of fuzzy AHP (analytic hierarchy process) and GRA (grey relational analysis) is used for the purchase decision-making of garage equipment. Various purchase decision criteria regarding garage equipment are assimilated through literature and interaction with garage professionals. The weightage of each purchase criteria of garage equipment is derived using fuzzy AHP. After the establishment of weights, various equipment suppliers are evaluated according to their conformance to the criteria using the GRA method.

The methodology of FAHP helped in ranking the different purchasing criteria based on their importance. It follows the following sequence: cost of ownership, technical specifications, operational characteristics, reliability and maintenance, after-sales support, commercial features, environmental pollution, and end of life characteristics. GRA methodology has been applied for the purchase of the best common rail test bench among alternatives according to their fulfillment of the purchase criteria requirements that are evaluated by a team of experts.

The integrated approach developed in this work for garage equipment purchase will help garage management to prioritize each supplier of the equipment based on their level of conformance to the purchase criteria.

A new system of identification for the selection of foam control agents has been introduced by Drew Ameroid. The system is specifically designed to eliminate the many problems currently associated with the selection process and is based on the three key parameters of the mechanism of the product: carrier, hydrophobic agent and ease of emulsification. If the user has knowledge of these, foam control selection becomes a very much simpler exercise.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the service quality automobile garages through development of a service quality index based on the factors influencing service quality.

A structural methodology of graph theory and matrix approach is applied for developing the service quality index.

The automobile maintenance can be considered as a service industry and in order to sustain in the competitive business environment, the service providers must ensure quality in their services. There are several factors that influence the service quality. Each factor is comprised of several sub-factors. Moreover, the factors are interrelated with each other. Modelling of these factors and their interrelations with due consideration of their structure is accomplished through the graph theory. The directed graph (digraph) of the service quality is defined; the nodes of this symbolize the quality influencing factors, while the edges represent their degrees of interrelationships. An equivalent matrix developed from the digraph establishes a service quality function which leads to evaluation of service quality index (SQI). A greater value of the service quality index displays that the organization and functioning of the garage is adequate.

The methodology can be applied for evaluating as well as comparing service quality of different garages. The observations would be helpful to the managers the garages to make strategies for improving their service quality.

The paper establishes the interrelations among various factors that influence the service quality at automobile garages and develop a numeric index for the evaluation of the same.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

IT WAS IN 1952 (see our October issue of that year) when we last made a tour of the Tecalemit factory at Plymouth. It had then only recently commenced production but even so, was thought to be the largest factory in Europe to be devoted exclusively to the manufacturing of lubrication equipment. We have now been back again, and made a further tour which we have illustrated in this article.

The business which became Lucas Assembly & Test Systems in 1992 has its origins in a company established in 1930 to deal in garage tools and equipment. It now comprises eight business units and employs 300 people in the UK and 350 in North America. Two factories in the USA, which came with the acquisition of Allen Automated Systems, are situated in and close to Detroit.