The main objective of facility location problem is the utilization of the facility by maximum number of possible customers so that the profit is maximized. For instance, in some services like wireless sensor networks, Wi-Fi, repeaters, etc., where the service area is limited, some specific equipment is installed in such a way that it could be used by maximum number of users. Here, the number of users for a particular facility is optimized with the help of clustering technique. The study develops a model for facility allocation problem. For the solution algorithm, a hybrid approach which is based on clustering and mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is proposed. The proposed method consists of two parts where in the first part, the K-means clustering technique is used and in the second part, for each cluster an MILP technique is implemented so that the facility which yields the maximum profit is obtained. Numerical examples for clustering and without clustering are presented. Analysis shows that due to clustering the average distance between facility and customer is significantly reduced.

The aim of this study is to recognize and scrutinize the barriers affecting the utilization of quality tools and techniques (QT&T) in manufacturing organizations. For this purpose, twelve barriers af-fecting the execution of QT&T in manufacturing organizations have been identified from literature analysis and experts’ opinion (academicians and industrial). Questionnaire-based survey has been utilized for the validation of identified barriers. Afterwards, an integrated model of QT&T has been developed by using interpretive structural Modelling (ISM) and Matriced Impacts Croisés Multi-plication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) approach. This research gives an apparent depic-tion to identify and handle the barriers by computing the effectiveness of each barrier. Barriers like accessibility of time and space, inability to change organizational culture and inadequate coordina-tion and teamwork are found to be the key barriers for utilization of QT&T in manufacturing organ-ization. The developed model will help the manufacturing organizations effectively utilize QT&T.

This study aims to investigate the awareness level of Biomedical waste managements in healthcare facilities, and their perception among hospital waste management team, doctors, nurses, lab technicians and waste handlers in Northwest Delhi region in India. The study has been conducted through a questionnaire survey followed by the descriptive statistical analysis method. Questionnaire contains of 38 questions, where the first section deals with the hospital waste management team, the second section is for doctors, nurses and lab technicians, and the third section is for the waste handlers. Out of 311 respondents, there were 16 hospital waste management teams, 81 doc-tors, 92 nurses, 49 lab technicians and 73 waste handlers. It was surprising that only 40% (n=10) hospitals had any kind of waste treatment & disposal facility onsite, only 10% hospitals were using the latest technology and 60% hospitals shred the Biomedical waste before disposal. It was good to see that none of the hospital waste managements disposed the waste with general waste, and 40% of them were exhausting through government agencies and the remaining 60% were using private agencies to dispose the waste. Finally, all the hospitals maintained the record of waste generated. It is concluded that there was a lack of awareness about the biomedical waste generation, legislation and management among healthcare personnel, and they all needed regular audits and training pro-grams at all levels, and a proper management starting from waste generation to its disposal at sites.

Impulse buying occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and persistent urge to buy something immediately. This on-going research considers the affections generated by consumers towards the chocolate brand which is endorsed by a celebrity. The Dual Mediation Hypothesis Model (DMH) is used to ascertain the ad effectiveness of the product/ brand, in this research advertisement featuring the celebrity. The affections generated by the ad leads to generation of affection towards the brand leading to purchase a product/ brand. The chocolate brand selected for the research has high market share and manufactures chocolate based products catering to all classes of consumers. The research primarily focuses on the significance of affections generated by the advertisement for the product. The purchase decision for such products is usually based on consumer impulses and attitudes towards the product/ brand. A convenience sample of 116 individuals was considered for the research and the survey was done using questionnaire method. The findings from the analysis revealed that the consumers purchased the products due to the impulses and affections generated by the ad and brand. There was no clear linkage between the celebrity and brand which lead to purchase intentions of the product/ brand. The Dual Mediation Model was found to be applicable as the affections towards the brand and the ad resulted in purchase intention.

Today energy is directly related with progress or growth of any country and every event requires a huge amount of energy. In today’s global competitiveness, demand for energy is very high and India is facing a problem of very poor energy supply. So, researchers and planners are worried about very poor productivity of thermal power plant and the most critical cause for this problem is high capacity waste at these plants. This paper focuses on causes of capacity waste and for this, DMAIC approach is adopted. The study also clears some myths of Six Sigma compatibility at process industries (thermal power plant) for performance improvement. After implementation of the first phase i.e. “Define”, the study confirms the competence of Six Sigma in defining the issue of capacity waste.

Six-Sigma is a statistical attitude – not judgment or sentiment. It is about statistical facts that as-sist the authorities to spotlight their concentration on the progression arrangement rather than on individuals and get assessments based on reality and unbiased information but not on impracti-cable prospects. Six-Sigma is an integrated approach to involve everything within the organiza-tion for reducing defects and variation. It is a combination of all efforts in an association for quality enhancement, quality progress and quality protection to reach the optimum clients satis-faction. The primary objective of Six-Sigma methodology is always directed towards the perfec-tion at any level whether financial or non-financial. Putting efforts rightly and maintaining con-sistency are the basic concepts behind successful implementation of Six-Sigma. The present work provides a way to examine the Six-Sigma practice in a manufacturing firm with the use of statistical thinking in getting high quality products by reducing the variation and ultimately in-creasing profit.

The theory of lean manufacturing provides the quality of the products in minimum cost and pro-vides customer satisfaction. Today, the competition level is very high and every industry tries to supply high quality products in nominal cost, so lean is the latest tool to achieve. The objective of this paper is to study different lean concepts under various lean strategies. This study helps to find out the status of lean manufacturing and its ways of implementation. Also in this paper, there is a discussion about lean manufacturing concept, lean waste, lean strategies, lean barriers and cycle of lean implementation. This paper presents a literature review to clear the status of lean manufacturing and their strategies with help of collection of relevant papers.

This research designs information technology (IT) adoption in service system. It determines the role of IT in determining the performance of service delivery processes. It addresses the concept of IT adoption and discusses the design of the key parameters/elements. Based on a detailed questionnaire survey along with case studies, it outlines how IT can be implemented successful-ly. Its sole purpose is to help establish whether or not IT adoption improves service quality and firm performance.

Maintainability plays a fundamental role for achieving success in software system and it is con-sidered as an important quality characteristics. Maintainability may be predicted efficiently by us-ing soft computing techniques as they provide good results. In this paper similarity- based ap-proach is used with the contribution of fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) at 2-level hierarchy. Here similarity- based approach illustrates the combine approach of fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS. This approach is used to provide the rank of software to select the best one for maintainability estimation. Also, several factors are presented that influence the software maintainability. These factors are taken as criterion and three software products are taken as alternatives.

Software development with minimum effort has become a challenging task for the software developers. Software effort may be defined as the prediction process of the effort required to develop any software. Many software effort estimation models have been developed in the past, but it is observed that none of them can be applied successfully in all kinds of projects in different environments that raise the problem of the software effort estimation model selection. To select the suitable software effort estimation model, many conflicting selection criteria must be considered in the decision process. The present study emphasizes on the development of a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making approach by integrating Fuzzy Set Theory and Weighted Distance Based Approximation. To show the consistency of the proposed approach, methodology validation is also performed by making comparison with existing methodologies and to check the criticality of the selection criterion, sensitivity analysis is also performed.