Critical Success Factors in the Implementation of Quality Systems in the Distribution Sector of the Oil Industry in Malaysia

The distribution sector of the oil industry in Malaysia, encompassing a sample of nine distribution worksites, was studied to investigate what the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in the implementation of quality systems to ISO 9000 were. The data sought would be the C SFs and the leadership qualities that consistently determine the success of the implementation. One hundred and nine-three staff at nine locations were observed. The study was carried out in two phases. The first phase was spent identifying the CSFs in the implementation of quality systems through readings and observation. The second phase was spent validating and testing the reliability of the hypothesis at eight distribution worksites. Results of the baseline assessment were statistically analysed utilising the SAS software. Descriptive statistics were derived from the observed data. The multivariate statistical procedures of principal component analysis (PCA) and factor analysis were adopted. Through the PCA the identified seventeen leadership qualities [adapted from Jameson and Soule ('91 )] were reduced to twelve. They were: ability to organise, resolution of complaints, leadership among peers, helpfulness, written ability, open-mindedness, respect/consideration for others, diplomacy and tact, situation handling, positive influence on others, respect from co-workers and dealing with issues. The PCA also reduced the ten identified CSFs to five. They were: sense of urgency, sense of co-operation, team work, cohesiveness and participation consciousness. Only factors with positive eigenvalues were considered because that would explain one hundred percent of the total variance in the data. To recapitulate, the hypothesis for the research is that the successful implementation of quality systems is a function of the degree of existence of these CSFs and of the leadership qualities of the worksite managers. The CSFs and leadership qualities were, therefore, valid because certification was awarded to each distribution worksite each time identified gaps from the baseline assessments at each site (against the CSFs and leadership qualities) were remedied

Malaysia in transition: A comparative analysis of Asian values, Islam Hadhari and 1Malaysia

This paper discusses on the principles of Asian values, propagated by Malaysia fourth prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Islam Hadhari by the fifth prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and 1Malaysia by the current prime minister Najib Razak. This paper gives a special attention to Abdullah and Islam Hadhari because it links the Mahathir’s period to current Najib’s leadership. The intension of this paper is to prove that actually these concepts are similar in theory and practice in stressing more on Islam and neo-feudalistic Malay agenda. In fact, Islam Hadhari is ironically a concept created by Mahathir himself to counter the idea of Islamic State from the Islamic party, PAS. Therefore, even after resigning from government, Mahathir’s agenda of Asian values is still being practiced.Najib Razak, current Prime Minister, on the other hand intended to promote quality leadership performance for the public and unity among the multiracial Malaysia.Although there are differences in term of the arguments for each of the idea, it is clear that these ideas or philosophies attempt to protect the real agenda of those three leaders which were to protect the political culture of neo-feudalism and ensure the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and Barisan Nasional (BN) will stay in power.This paper shows the debates between scholars in explaining the ideas and philosophies behind those three concepts in Malaysia’s realpolitik

4 coms and the roadblocks to the success of construction project delivery in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Project management involves an application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve project objectives and it plays important role in the successful completion of construction projects. The project is deemed as successful if it achieves the objectives according to their acceptance criteria, within an agreed timescale and budget. As projects are separate to business-as-usual activities, it requires people to come together temporarily to focus on specific project objectives thus some clients opt to employ project manager in ensuring the successful delivery of the project. This paper explores the role of 4COMs in ensuring the success of the project and highlight efforts made by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to embedded the 4 COMs in the undertaking of its massive campus development. Based on real projects, the issues in 4COM quadrants are identified and analyzed. Although comfort seems to be less of issue in UTM’s projects undertaking, the most common and crucial issues in project management are competence and commitment of consultants in performing their professional obligations. The inability to deliver the expected duties reasonably proved that competence and commitment should be one of the criteria for the selection of consultants in the future project. The combination of hard or technical skills and the human relation skills (competence and commitment) and the synergy from this significantly determine the success of the project

Spectrophotometric determination of trace Arsenic (III) ion based on complex formation with gallocyanine

In this study, a simple, selective and sensitive method, for spectrophotometric determination of As(III) with gallocyanine as the sensitive reagent was developed. The wavelength of an analytical measurement, for the determination of As (III), using gallocyanine was at 630nm with an optimum response at pH 2. The RSD for the reproducibility of 100 ppm As(III) was 2.3%. The LOD was 0.04 ppm with linear dynamic range in As(III) concentration of 0.2 - 1.5 ppm. The developed method has been validated against Atomic AbsorptionSpectrophotometry (AAS). The interference study of several metal ions was carried out andit revealed that that Mn (II) ion was interfered the most

Kreativiti dalam kalangan jurutera di kawasan perindustrian Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang

Negara Membangun (Dunia Ketiga) telah melalui proses industrialisasi, sementara negara industri maju telah beralih kepada era ekonomi pasca industri berasaskan maklumat dan pengetahuan. Perkembangan teknologi yang pesat telah mentransformasi keseluruhan sistem pengeluaran. Sistem pengeluaran yang baru ini sangat produktif, berkembang pesat dan mempamerkan tahap persaingan yang tinggi. Ini telah mengakibatkan peralihan yang besar dalam lokasi pengeluaran dan aktiviti inovasi, mengubah pola kelebihan bandingan, sistem organisasi dan pengurusan industri, saling hubungan antara sektor produktif yang lain dan perubahan dalam pola pekerjaan. Modal manusia (berkemahiran dan berpengetahuan) merupakan asas penting kepada kelebihan daya saing bandar atau negara. Sejak awal industrialisasi di negara membangun dikaitkan dengan kelebihan lokasi buruh murah dan ramai yang merupakan komponen penting dalam aktiviti pengeluaran besar-besaran berteknologi rendah. Teori Pembahagian Buruh Antarabangsa yang menguasai analisis peralihan lokasi industri mengaitkan daya tarikan buruh murah dengan kemunculan beberapa negara membangun termasuk Malaysia sebagai lokasi kepada unit pengeluaran pesisir pantai syarikat multinasional asing yang melibatkan aktiviti pengeluaran dan pemasangan rutin secara besar-besaran bernilai rendah. Pola aktiviti pengeluaran ini mempamerkan keperluan yang tinggi terhadap pekerja operator pengeluaran yang selalunya melibatkan pekerja wanita. Walaupun demikian, kini telah terdapat pemindahan aktiviti bernilai tinggi seperti Penyelidikan dan Pembangunan (R&D) dan merekabentuk ke negara membangun. Sektor perindustrian pembuatan di Malaysia dan Pulau Pinang khususnya dalam industri Barangan Elektrik dan Elektronik juga dikatakan telah mengalami transformasi ke arah industri yang mempunyai nilai ditambah yang tinggi. Namun demikian, tidak banyak yang diketahui tentang tahap penglibatan ruang industri di negara ini dalam aktiviti bernilai tinggi ini terutamanya yang melibatkan kreativiti di persekitaran kerja. Artikel ini akan mengemukakan hasil dapatan kajian yang telah dijalankan bagi kes kawasan perindustrian Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang. Data hasil kajian dibincangkan secara deskriptif berdasarkan kepada pandangan pekerja jurutera dalam sektor perindustrian di Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang

Ketoksikan Beberapa Racun Hamama dan Piretroid Timan terhadap Hamama Lelabah Merah, Tetranychus urticae Koch Kompleks

The toxicity of four acaricides and five synthetic pyrethroids against red spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch complex, was evaluated in the laboratory using the slide-dip technique. Mortality was recorded at 48 h post treatment and data were subjected to probit analysis. Based on the LC50 values, the order of toxicity of the chemicals tested was as follows: amitraz > deltamethrin = cypermethrin (CymbushR ) = fenvalerate > cypermethrin (RipcordR) > permethrin > bromopropylate = chinomethionate > azocyclotin. The LC50 value for amitraz was 2.5 ppm while for chinomethionate it was 37.5 ppm. Repeated tests on the toxicity of the pyrethroids using leaf dip technique at the LC50 and LC95 values obtained earlier from the slide-dip technique revealed a lower level of mortality. The highest mortality obtained was 21.0% from fenvalerate treatment at the LC95 value. Thus test techniques were found to give different toxicity values on the red spider mite

IRREGULAR READINGS THAT WERE NOT ATTRIBUTED BY AL-SHAWKANI IN SURAT ANAAM AND ITS LINGUISTIC AND GRAMMATICAL IMPORTANCE (القراءات الشاذة التي لم ينسبها الشوكاني في سورة الأنعام وأهميتها اللغوية والنحوية )

The interpretation of al-Shawkani, which is called Fath al-Qadeer, contains many of the irregular readings، especially in Surah al-An’am that we are discussing. Al-Shawkani reported about this subject in sixty-eight (odd readings). He deduced in the statement of the meanings of interpretation, linguistic and doctrinal and jurisprudence and other meanings. The approach followed by Imam Al-Shawkani in his introduction to the readings was not a method of his own and different from others, but was similar to many of the interpreters، and was relying on the transfer of a lot of readings from the books of advanced interpretations and not rely on the books of the original readings such as the Altiabah book of Ibn al-Jazri and the Ithaf book of Demiate and the Almohtaseb book for Ibn Gini. In this article، the researcher explained the extent of the efforts of the Al-Shawkani in the science of readings، explaining their linguistic significance in the statement of what forms and what is their further in the interpretation of Aiat. Because the science of readings is the origin of the language and that the language and its rules are subject to the Quran. in this article, the researcher focused on the abnormal readings that Al-Shawkani did not attribute to al-An‘am with its linguistic significance. In our present era, many people do not care about abnormal readings due to the suspicion of their validity and say that there is no point in them. And a great role in all the sciences of jurisprudence interpretation or jurisprudence or the origins of jurisprudence or modernity and doctrine and language and rhetoric and other sciences, this shortening them towards their religion that they neglected the importance of these readings, all because of their distance from science and knowledge

College Students\u27 Attitude Towards the Utilization of the Sport Recreation Center (SRC)

The primary aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for using or not using the student recreational center (SRC) among a frequent users and non-users. The second purpose is to use the research findings in order to make same recommendations for attracting stronger patronage amongst student users. Two groups of college students that were identified by user and non-user were invited to attend a separate focus group discussion. A user group consisted of six students (5 male, 1 female) with a mean age of 20.33 (Sd=.82), and the non-user group consisted of eight students (6 male, 2 female) with a mean age of 20.38 (Sd=1.30). The discussion was lead by one of the authors and was tape recorded with permissions from the respondents. The recorded tape was transcribed verbatim and analyzed by using the content analysis method by the three authors. Separate analyses were conducted for both groups. Results show that three themes emerged as important for the User group using the facility: the wellness reason; good facilities; and reasons associated with socialization. On the other hand, four themes emerged for the non-user group not using the facility: inconvenience; personal inadequacy; poor accessibility; and lack of interest. On how to attract more students, the User group suggested that students themselves must be knowledgeable in exercise; SRC should create more competition; and the SRC should keep up with the maintenance. While the non-user group suggested that more email information sent to them; the SRC should train their staff (e.g. for weight room staff), and the SRC should build a bigger space (especially weight room); and more competition should be offered. Furthermore, it is interesting to find that both the user and non-user have different opinions on how to promote more students usage. However, there appears to be a relatively good relationship between the two. This relationship has is in the conclusion and further recommendations are also suggested

Image analysis techniques for ripeness detection of palm oil fresh fruit bunches

Being one of the biggest producers and exporters of palm oil and palm oil products, Malaysia has an important role to play in fulfilling the growing global need for oils and fats sustainably. Quality is an important factor that ensuring palm oil industries fulfill the demands of palm oil product. There has significant relationship between the quality of the palm oil fruits and the content of its oil. Ripe FFB gives more oil content, while unripe FFB give the least content. Overripe FFB shows that the content of oil is deteriorates. There have 4 classes of ripeness stages involves in this paper which are ripe, unripe, underipe and overripe. The proposed approach in this paper uses color features and bag of visual word for classifying oil palm fruit ripeness stages. Experiments conducted in this paper consisted of smartphone camera for image acquisition, python and matlab software for image pre processing and Support Vector Machine for classification. A total of 400 images is taken in a few plant in north Malaysia. Experiments involved on a dataset of 360 images for training for four classes and 40 images for testing. The average accuracy for the 4 classes of the FFB by color features is 57% while the accuracy for ripeness classification by using bag of visual word is 70%

Life Table of the Green Lacewing Apertochrysa sp. (Neuroptera:Chrysopidae) Reared on Rice Moth Corcyra cephalonica(Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

The survivorship from egg to adult emergence and fertility of Apertochrysa sp. fed on Corcyra cephalonica were studied in laboratory and population parameters of Apertochrysa sp. were used for construction of life table under ideal condition in laboratory free from natural enemies. The highest mortality occurred in eggs (44.3%) followed by mortality (15.4%) in 2nd instar larva and in pupal stage (11.4%). The sex ratio (proportion of female to male) was 1:1.4. The maximum life span of female was 38 days. The highest number of eggs produced per female was 6.33 at seventh day of oviposition. The gross reproductive rate (GRR) was 19.48 females per female per generation. The net reproductive rate (Ro) was 2.28 females per female per generation. Mean generation time (T) was 40.6 days, while the intrinsic rate of natural increase (r) was 0.02 female per female per day. The finite rate of increase (λ) was 1.02 females per female per day. The population double time (DT) was within 14.8 day