A hybrid Kano-fuzzy AHP method for measuring customer satisfaction: A case study of transportation system

An increase competition on today's economy has created motivation for many organizations to look for different alternatives on better serving the customers. There are always some budget limitations on any customer relationship method, which leads us to prioritize different alternatives. In this paper, we present an empirical method based on an integrated Kano and fuzzy analytical hierarchy procedure to rank suitable alternatives. The proposed model of this paper uses a questionnaire survey to gather customer's opinions and implements the method for a real-world case study of transportation planning. The questionnaire includes 37 questions distributed among 976 passengers for two trips in Iran. The results indicate that driver's physical and mental health, buss equipments with GPS functionality and familiarity of drivers with road and road's conditions play important role on choosing a transportation company

A comparative Kano analysis on customer satisfaction based on customer and employment perspectives

These days, there is a tight competition among business units and all production units or service businesses attempt to use different techniques to increase their market shares. In such environment, customer normally says the last word, in fact, customer plays an important role and in many organizations, it is considered as part of their assets. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid method to detect important criteria using Kano three-dimensional method and prioritize them using analytical hierarchy process. We implement the proposed model of this paper for one of Iranian banks called Bank Melli Iran. The study determines 25 different attributes, categorizes them in three different groups based on Kano model, and ranks them in terms of customers and employees' perspective. The results of the survey indicate that customer and employees mostly have similar views since there are 21 common attributes between them. However, the priorities of these 21 items are often different in terms of two groups of employees and customers

Three-Dimensional Graph Drawing Procedures for Functions of Two and Several Variables

Many functions depend on more than one independent variable. For instance, the volume of a right circular cylinder is a function of its radius and its height, so it is a function V(r, h) of two variables r and h. Real valued functions of several independent real variables are defined similarly to functions in the single-variable case. In this article, we define functions of more than one independent variable and discuss ways to graph them. But their graph is impossible in the two-dimensional system and the MATLAB program is the language that guarantees computer implementation at a high level in mathematics, easily presenting calculations, images, graphs, and writing programs in its environment. For achieving this goal, we first explained the plot3 procedure in the three-dimensional coordinate system to draw the graph of two dependent subordinates on the MATLAB program environment, followed by the surf procedure as well as the mesh procedure. Then we explained the procedures mentioned in the polar coordinates. We have provided examples to better understand each procedure

Prioritizing the effective factors for customers attraction: A case study of Sepah Bank

During the past few years, privatization has recently changed banking industry and there has been an increase competition in this industry. New banks try to present better services to absorb customers and traditional banks attempt to improve their services to retain their existing customers. In such environment and with limited amount of resources, there is a necessity to prioritize different influencing factors on the quality of the services. The proposed study of this paper presents a multi criteria decision making method along with Kano method to prioritize the most influencing factors of service quality. The proposed study of this paper is implemented for one of the oldest banks in Iran called Sepah. We have gathered different factors influencing customer satisfaction for all Sepah banks located in Semnan, Iran and using, analytical hierarchy process we provide a detailed ranking

An empirical study based on BSC-DEA to measure the relative efficiencies of different health care centers in province of Semnan, Iran

In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to measure the relative efficiency of seven health care centers in province of Semnan, Iran, which were under the coverage of social security organization of Iran. The proposed model of this paper uses a hybrid of balanced score card and data envelopment analysis for performance measurement. The proposed sudy uses four perspectives of balanced score card including learning and growth, internal process, customer and financial perspectives and within each perspective, data envelopment analysis is adopted so that the outputs of each perspective are used as inputs of the other perspective. The preliminary results indicate that all seven units perform relatively well and the overall efficiency of all units in this province is 0.769

Association of the length of CA Dinucleotide repeat in the epidermal growth factor receptor with risk and age of breast cancer onset in Isfahan

Background: The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) also known as HER1 or ErbB1 is a prominent member of the erbB proto-oncogene family, which encodes a receptor tyrosine kinase with a pivotal role in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation. The aim of this research was to study the CA repeat polymorphism in intron I of EGFR among the patients with breast cancer and healthy controls. We have also evaluated risks for breast cancer, age of onset and grade of tumor associated with the CA repeat polymorphism. Methods: In the

Experimental Investigation of Connection Details on the Cyclic Performance of All-steel Tubular Buckling Restrained Braces

To eliminate the geometrical defects and to reduce the damage caused by out-off-plane rotation of the end portion of the conven-tional buckling restrained braces, as well as introducing a new way to facilitate the construction and installation process, the exper-imental behavior of 5 proposed specimens as new type of all-steel tubular buckling restrained braces (AST-BRB) under cyclic axial loads was studied.The proposed specimens consist of a steel tube as a load bearing member (core), which is placed inside a larger tube as a buckling restraining member (pod). At the two ends of the core member, different end details and connection (compared to the common BRBs) are provided as the elastic transitional region. The performance of the specimens were evaluated based on indices, such as damage mode, repeatable behavior, adjusted strength factors, load-bearing capacity, and cumulative inelastic displacement.The evaluation of the results indicated that, the specimens, which welded variable cross-section steel lids at both ends of the core, have superior seismic performance. The superior specimens, for all cycles with larger displacements of the yielding displacement, exhibited a stable hysteresis behavior in bearing of cyclic loads. The bearing pressure was about 1.07 times greater than the tensile load. The cumulative inelastic axial displacements of these specimens is at least 209 times of their yield displacement. Meanwhile, they can tolerate at least 140 % compressive load and 10 % greater tension loads relative to the nominal capacity of the core individual

Designing a performance appraisal system based on balanced scorecard for improving productivity: Case study in Semnan technology and science park

Today, organizations for holding and improving their competing merit use performance measurement for evaluation, control, supervision and improvement of their trading processes. Medium and small companies in technology and science parks are very useful in economic revivification and technology development. Technology and science parks have provided necessary consultations, information, suitable equipments, and services for developing technology unites and prepare them for independent presence in industry. One of the necessary elements for the success and improvement of performance in these companies is to establish and implement balanced scorecard, which can be used to reach desired goals, strategies and to improve performance. In this article, we use a structured method for calculating efficiency of four perspectives of balanced scorecard. Statistical society of this research was Semnan technology and Science Park and seven experts are selected for answering questions of the survey. We also complete questionnaire and determine index and relative importance of all indices. For developing strategic goals of Semnan technology and science park according to four perspectives of balanced score card (finance, growth and learning, internal process), six meetings were hold and finally all crisis macro goals index were identified and they were analyzed for evaluating performance