Search results

Computer‐integrated manufacturing (CIM) or flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are widely publicised as the operational mode for the “factory of the future” These systems are centred on a computer‐based manufacturing information system (CBMFIS) that contains all product‐related and process‐related data. Successful design and implementation of a reliable information system requires a close integration of a broad range of managerial, technical and behavioural issues. Such a model is presented and its components identified. Critical elements of each component are identified and analysed within the context of the manufacturing environment. This presentation should provide comprehensive guidelines for establishing a CBMFIS and so improve the chances for success in the use and development of such a system.

Shows how to introduce computer support for the implementation of different decision‐making settings. Provides a comparison between decision support and expert systems. Analyses the similarities and dissimilarities of decision support systems (DSS) and expert systems (ES) and presents a conceptual framework for the integration of these two technologies. Numerous examples illustrate operationally integrated DSS and ES.

The purpose of this article is twofold. The first is to be able to understand the technical capabilities of e‐collaboration systems from their inception to the present time and their possible future capabilities. The study examines the capabilities of 11 such systems. The article's second purpose is to be able to understand the reasons for the popularity and widespread utilization of e‐collaboration technologies by a large number of organizations.

The authors conducted literature review and also examined the technical manuals and technical features of 11 leading collaboration platforms. These collaboration tools were also used hands‐on. Selected users of these systems were also interviewed in order to find out their opinions regarding the usability and functionality of these systems.

After careful review of the literature and analyzing the technical capabilities of 11 e‐collaboration systems the finding of this study was the understanding of and the reasons for the popularity and widespread utilization of e‐collaboration technologies by a wide variety of organizations. Another finding of this study was a clear understanding of different generations of e‐collaboration technologies and the expected capabilities and features of the future generations of these systems.

This paper has significant value for practitioners and organizations that are either using e‐collaboration technologies in their day‐to‐day operations or attempting to employ these tools in order to improve productively and competitiveness and achieving organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new methodology that handles the issue of the dynamic behavior of customers over time.

A new methodology is presented based on time series clustering to extract dominant behavioral patterns of customers over time. This methodology is implemented using bank customers’ transactions data which are in the form of time series data. The data include the recency (R), frequency (F) and monetary (M) attributes of businesses that are using the point-of-sale (POS) data of a bank. This data were obtained from the data analysis department of the bank.

After carrying out an empirical study on the acquired transaction data of 2,531 business customers that are using POS devices of the bank, the dominant trends of behavior are discovered using the proposed methodology. The obtained trends were analyzed from the marketing viewpoint. Based on the analysis of the monetary attribute, customers were divided into four main segments, including high-value growing customers, middle-value growing customers, prone to churn and churners. For each resulted group of customers with a distinctive trend, effective and practical marketing recommendations were devised to improve the bank relationship with that group. The prone-to-churn segment contains most of the customers; therefore, the bank should conduct interesting promotions to retain this segment.

The discovered trends of customer behavior and proposed marketing recommendations can be helpful for banks in devising segment-specific marketing strategies as they illustrate the dynamic behavior of customers over time. The obtained trends are visualized so that they can be easily interpreted and used by banks. This paper contributes to the literature on customer relationship management (CRM) as the proposed methodology can be effectively applied to different businesses to reveal trends in customer behavior.

In the current business condition, customer behavior is changing continually over time and customers are churning due to the reduced switching costs. Therefore, choosing an effective customer segmentation methodology which can consider the dynamic behaviors of customers is essential for every business. This paper proposes a new methodology to capture customer dynamic behavior using time series clustering on time-ordered data. This is an improvement over previous studies, in which static segmentation approaches have often been adopted. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that combines the recency, frequency, and monetary model and time series clustering to reveal trends in customer behavior.

The purpose of this study was to assess the self-perceived need, seeking and use of dental care and its main determinants in Kurdistan province, Iran.

A total of 1,056 adults in Kurdistan province were included in this cross-sectional study. Multistage sampling approach was used to select the samples. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, economic status, self-perceived need, seeking and use of dental care were collected using a self-administrated questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to assess factors affecting the use of dental care. In addition, socioeconomic inequality relating to dental care needs and use of dental care were examined using concentration curve and concentration index.

In this study, unmet dental care need was 62.7%. There was a perceived need for dental care among 13.7% (n = 145) of the participants in the past month, with only 39.3% (n = 57) seeking the care. The most important reasons for unmet dental care need were “Could not afford the cost” and “Insurance did not cover the costs.” Multivariate logistic regression showed that supplementary insurance status and household economic status were identified as main determinants affecting dental care-seeking behavior. The result of concentration index revealed that seeking dental care was more concentrated among the rich, whereas the perceived dental care need is more prevalent among the poor.

This study demonstrated that the prevalence of unmet dental care needs is high in the study setting. Also, financial barrier was identified as the main determinant of unmet dental care needs.

The uniqueness of the pre-hospital setting and the need for quick decision-making confronts pre-hospital emergency personnel with various moral conflicts that can lead to moral distress (MD) in them. This study aimed to design a valid scale for the assessment of MD in emergency medical service (EMS) staff.

This exploratory mixed-method study was conducted among the EMS provider's community. In the qualitative section, data were gathered and analyzed with semi-structured interviews and conventional content analysis, respectively. The initial pool of items was formed and the primary scale was designed. In the quantitative section, a methodological study was carried out to determine the psychometric properties of the scale including qualitative-quantitative face validity, qualitative-quantitative content validity with content validity ratio and index (CVR/CVI), construct validity by exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and convergent validity, internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha/ Omega McDonald's/ floor and ceiling effect) and stability with intra-class correlation (ICC).

After interviews with 14 emergency technicians, the initial scale was designed with 60 items. Of the total items, 17 poor items were dropped during face and qualitative content validity. In the content validity phase, the items with CVR > 0.62, modified Kappa > 0.74 were retained, which eliminated 23 items. EFA was conducted with 20 items and lead to the 5 factors. The floor and ceiling effect for the whole scale was zero. Finally, the reliability of the scale was confirmed (a = 0.83, O = 0.86, ICC = 0.95).

The developed 20-item scale is a valid and reliable scale for the assessment of the MD in EMS providers.