The present paper applies Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for grouping of machines and parts so that the part families could be processed in the cells formed by those associated machines. An incidence matrix with binary entries has been chosen to apply this methodology. After performing the eigenanalysis of the principal component and observing the component loading plot of the principal components, the machine groups and part families are identified and arranged to form machine-part cells. Later, the same methodology is extended and it is applied to nine other machine-part matrices collected from literature for the validation of the proposed methodology. The goodness of cell formation is compared using the grouping efficacy and the potential of eigenanalysis in cell formation is established over the best available results using the various established methodologies. The result shows that in 70% of the problems there is an increase in grouping efficacy and in 30% problem, the performance measure of cell formation is as good as the best result from literature.

Despite the significance of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithm to market segmentation, there is a need of a comprehensive literature review and a classification system for it towards identification of future trend of market segmentation research. The present work is the first identifiable academic literature review of the application of neural network based techniques to segmentation. Our study has provided an academic database of literature between the periods of 2000–2010 and proposed a classification scheme for the articles. One thousands (1000) articles have been identified, and around 100 relevant selected articles have been subsequently reviewed and classified based on the major focus of each paper. Findings of this study indicated that the research area of ANN based applications are receiving most research attention and self organizing map based applications are second in position to be used in segmentation. The commonly used models for market segmentation are data mining, intelligent system etc. Our analysis furnishes a roadmap to guide future research and aid knowledge accretion and establishment pertaining to the application of ANN based techniques in market segmentation. Thus the present work will significantly contribute to both the industry and academic research in business and marketing as a sustainable valuable knowledge source of market segmentation with the future trend of ANN application in segmentation.

Meta-heuristic approaches are general algorithmic framework, often nature-inspired and designed to solve NP-complete optimization problems in cellular manufacturing systems and has been a growing research area for the past two decades. This paper discusses various meta-heuristic techniques such as evolutionary approach, Ant colony optimization, simulated annealing, Tabu search and other recent approaches, and their applications to the vicinity of group technology/cell formation (GT/CF) problem in cellular manufacturing. The nobility of this paper is to incorporate various prevailing issues, open problems of meta-heuristic approaches, its usage, comparison, hybridization and its scope of future research in the aforesaid area.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is essentially a commercial software package that enables the integration of transaction - oriented data and business processes throughout an organization. In order to remain competitive in this global business scenario, the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are opting for ERP implementation. In Indian SME sector, the adoption of ERP is rapidly increasing. Literature shows many instances where organizations, even after implementing such novel information systems like ERP, are unable to derive the benefits of integration. It is, therefore, not surprising that implementation of enterprise information systems in general is quite difficult due to their size, scope and complexity. Therefore, there is a need to identify some issues that would lead to positive outcome for the implementation of ERP systems in the context of Indian SME sector. This paper thus attempts to identify and to prioritize the factors influencing proper implementation of ERP systems in a business organization particularly for Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs). The research presented here is specifically targeted the Indian SMEs, which have already completed the process of implementing ERP system.