Antecedents and Impacts of E-Business Aligment Amongst Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

E-business has great potentials for firms to extend their business efficiency. Nevertheless, due to various problems and constraints, the e-business deployment within SMEs sector has been reported as not effective. To ensure effective e-business deployment, necessary measures are needed to assess how firms align diverse ebusiness capabilities in support of their business operation. This study therefore aims to investigate the extent firms align diverse e-business capabilities across business processes (e-business alignment). Using a strategic fit perspective, this study has observed two major propositions. First, firms‟ ability to align e-business to support the most crucial business processes has potentially led to better realisation of ebusiness values. Secondly, certain managerial and environmental conditions have explained the differing characteristics of e-business alignment amongst firms. This study employs quantitative research approach using survey method to collect and collate evidences from 140 owner/managers of SMEs. Preliminary analysis has indicated e-business alignment/misalignment patterns across business functions. The cluster analysis further reveals three distinct profiles with different characteristics of e-business alignment. These profiles are labelled as 'highly fit', 'moderately fit' and 'low fit' based on their e-business fit characteristics. This result confirms the first proposition where highly aligned firms will report greater and wider e-business impacts. The second proposition reveals that environmental uncertainty, IT sophistication, owner/manager knowledge on advanced IT/IS, e-business deployment status, and support network are significant predictors to different e-business alignment characteristics among firms. This study suggests that firms relatively have different priority over e-business solutions to support their business. These findings have demonstrated why some firms do not progress to a higher e-business ladder. It further justifies unequal deployment of e-business solutions to support functions across firms

The Extent of E-Business Usage and Perceived Cumulative Benefits: A Survey on Small and Me-dium-Sized Enterprises

Internet-based application (e-business) is well-recognized as a useful mean to extend business efficiency. Owing to the idiosyncratic nature of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), considerable works have been initiated to explain why firms within this sector embrace e-business. Despite extensive research to identify factors that explain the firm’s e-business practice, works are still limited to examining as to what extent the e-business assimilates into business operation. Furthermore, firms would experience varying degrees of benefits by deploying e-business. Therefore, this paper reports intensity of ebusiness usage across various business processes and its relationship with cumulative benefits. A survey of 140 SMEs has revealed the diversity of e-business usage across business processes. A cluster analysis has further proposed three distinct profiles of firms based on the intensity of their e-business usage. Finally, the empirical evidence obtained has also ascertained positive association between the intensity of e-business usage and cumulative e-business benefits. Despite limitations highlighted, this paper provides evidence on the current state of e-business usage across firm operation and its likely impact to the firm operation

Dormancy and cardinal temperatures during seed germination of five weedy rice (Oryza spp.) strains

Temperature during seed imbibition has been found to influence germination rate and final percent germination. Seeds of one cultivated variety and five weedy rice strains, collected from different localities in Peninsular Malaysia, were used to determine their degree of dormancy and cardinal temperatures. Meanwhile, standard germination and tetrazolium chloride (TTC) tests were used to evaluate the percentage of seed viability and degree of dormancy. Seed germination test at six different constant temperatures (between 10 and 35oC) was applied to determine the cardinal temperatures estimated by linear regression models, base temperature, Tb, optimum temperature, To, and maximum temperature, Tc. The TTC test was found to be a simple and quick test to determine the degree of seed dormancy among different weedy rice strains, when used together with a standard germination test. Germination rate was found to be related to the degree of dormancy but it had no influence on the range of cardinal temperatures. The Tb among the five weedy rice strains was in the range of 2-7.3oC. The To varied between 28.1 and 37.5oC, with an average of 32.5oC. This temperature (To) was higher than that of the cultivated MR73 variety (24.3oC), whereas the range of Tc was 42.2-43.3oC. The study indicated that the non-dormant cultivated rice seed had lower Tb and To values than the dormant seed of weedy rice

Structural Behaviour of Prestressed Concrete Hollow Beams

This thesis is concerned with the primary objective of studying the structural behaviour of prestressed concrete hollow beams. Ten simply supported rectangular hollow beams and one rectangular solid beam were tested on an effective span of 2.80m subjected to two third point loadings. The variables in the study were the percentage of self weight reduced and the amount of prestressing wires. Eight beams were tested unbonded while the other two beams were fully bonded.Ultimate loads, cracking loads, crack widths and deflections were recorded at various loadings and crack propagations were observed. The results obtained were compared with theoretical values. It was observed that due to the absence of material in the hollow portion, compared to a solid beam with similar outside dimensions, the ultimate moment carrying capacity of prestressed hollow beam is reduced if neutral axis of the beam at failure is located below the top flange. However, if the neutral axis of the beams at failure is located within the top flange, then the ultimate moment carrying capacity is at least equivalent to that of a solid beam. It was also observed that the theory on the ultimate moment carrying capacity presented in this thesis gives a fairly good prediction. However, the theory used to predict cracking load as well as deflection was found not suitable for unbonded beams as it greatly underestimates the deflection and overestimates the cracking load. It was also observed that bonding has a great influence on crack widths and deflections. Bonded beams show more uniform crack distribution with reduced maximum crack width and increased ultimate load capacity. From test results, it is recommended that prestressed hollow beams should be made bonded in order to achieve at least the predicted cracking load

Web accessibility of the Malaysian public university websites

The accessibility of the Malaysian public university websites is crucial to make sure that all of the staff, students and visitors of the website have equal opportunities to access the university’s information.Furthermore, with the objective to achieve high ranking web of universities or webometrics, it is important that the webmasters of the web to ensure that their web accessibility comply with the standards and guidelines. This paper evaluates the accessibility of the 20 public universities in Malaysia based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and Section 508 of the United States Rehabilitation Act. The result suggested that although there are some improvements have been made as compared to the findings from the previous studies, some actions need to be taken to ensure that the universities websites are accessible to everyone regardless of their ability, constraint and limitation. Among the issues that are important to be highlighted include distinguish ability, keyboard accessibility, navigability, adaptability and text alternative for non-text elements

Effect of thiobencarb formulations on freshwater shrimp, macrobrachium lanchesteri (De Man)

The effect of com-cob controlled-release formulations (CRF) of thiobencarb ( TAl and T A2) and alginate CRF (TAL 70192) to the freshwater shrimp, Macrobrachium lanchesteri (De Man), in comparison to a conventional granular formulation was studied in the laboratory. Mortality ofthe shrimps 24 h after exposure to the conventional formulation was significantly higher (P <= 0.05), and increased to 93.3% after 120 h. The CRF of TAl, TA2 and TAL 70192 caused mortality of 19.2,5.8 and 8.5%, respectively, 120 h after exposure. This difference is due to the slower release of thiobencarb using CRF

Pupal Distribution of Dacus dorsalis Hendel in Relation to Host Plants and its Pupation Depth

Studies on pupal distribution of Dacus dorsalis Hendel in rdation to host plants and its depth of pupation were conducted. Samples from papaya trees gave significantly (P<O.05) higher pupal count compared to those from guava, starfruit, and jackfruit. No significant differences were obtained among samples from the latie)' three host plants. The pupae were also found to be almost evenly distributed under the trees. The results obtained also showed that this insect prefers to pupate at 2 cm and 3 em soil depth

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) approach to improve Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) in Robert Bosch Automotive Steering Sdn. Bhd

The manufacturing industries especially in an automotive manufacturing industry has gone through significant changes in last decade where the competition has increased dramatically. So, good maintenance is fundamental for productive manufacturing system by implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) as an alternative approach for the equipment maintenance in order to achieve zero breakdowns and zero defect. By TPM approach, it able to keep the current plant and equipment at its higher productive level through cooperation of all areas of organization. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the TPM implementation, the overall equipment effectiveness is a core element as a tool to measure as well as to improve the productivity of manufacturing organization. The aim of this report is to study an approach of Total Production Maintenance by implementing TPM 4 Pillar Model to improve Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) in Robert Bosch Automotive Steering Sdn. Bhd. In this study one machine has been selected as a case study to identify and analyse the implementation of TPM using TPM 4 Pillars Model to ensure that machine always in optimum condition and ready for operation. This study will involve in identification of main problem that need to be eliminated, effectiveness of implementation of autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance to reduce unplanned breakdown as well as seek any opportunities of improvement of that machine and targeting to exceed the target set of OEE which is 97.5%. 3 months breakdown and OEE data have been collected for further analysis and come up with the summary of finding to ensure that implementation of TPM 4 Pillars Model is success for this plant. (Abstract by author