Improvement of Service Quality in the Indian Automobile Service Sector-An Empirical Study

In the post liberalized industrial scenario due to the fierce competition in the global market, Indian service organizations have started implementing quality management programmes in their organizations to improve their systems and procedures. In this context, Indian service firms are interested to know about their improvement in service quality delivery after implementing the quality management programmes in their organizations. After a careful analysis of various research studies so far it seems that there is an insufficiency of literature in developing economies than developed economies especially in automobile service sector in India. Hence the present study attempts to fill the void by studying the previous level of service quality delivery and current level of service quality delivery in the Indian automobile service stations. The present study found that Indian automobile service stations have improved their service quality delivery level with respect to all service quality factors

PREDICTIVE TIME MODEL OF AN ANGLIA AUTOFLOW MECHANICAL CHICKEN CATCHING SYSTEM

In this project, a predictive time model was developed for an Anglia Autoflow mechanical chicken catching system. At the completion of poultry growout, hand labor is currently used to collect the birds from the house, although some integrators are beginning to incorporate mechanical catching equipment. Several regression models were investigated with the objective of predicting the time taken to catch the chicken. A regression model relating distance to total time (sum of packing time, catching time, movement to catching and movement to packing) provided the best performance. The model was based on data collected from poultry farms on the Delmarva Peninsula during a six-month period. Statistical Analysis System (SAS) and NeuroShell Easy Predictor were used to build the regression and neural network models respectively. Model adequacy was established by both visual inspection and statistical techniques. The models were validated with experimental results not incorporated into the initial model.Livestock Production/Industries,

Kinematic Synthesis and Analysis of Four Bar Mechanism Using Expert System

A considerable amount of research has been carried out on the synthesis of mechanisms with linkages. Such mechanisms can be used in many ways and in general, synthesis is carried out with reference to input positions and output positions. In this study, the expert system analyzes the four bar double rocker mechanism for given set of inputs which includes the distance of the ground pivots depending upon the space constraint for the mounting of the mechanism, the angles of swing of the input link and the angle of swing required by the output link. The results of the kinematic synthesis and analysis module of the expert system have been compared using a standard problem

Influence of pyrogallol antioxidant on performance and emissions of a CI fuelled with neem oil biodiesel

In current circumstances, energy is considered as a critical factor for economic growth, social development and human welfare. To bridge the ever rising energy requirement, biodiesel an alternative diesel fuel derived from waste vegetable oil, animal fats or vegetable oil is becoming increasingly popular in developing countries. Amongst which the biodiesel derived from neem oil has already proved as potential alternative fuel for CI engine. However the studies which investigate performance and emission characteristics with additives need to be investigated. In the present investigation the neem oil biodiesel was prepared using acid catalyzed esterification followed by trans-esterification process. The performance and emission characteristics of a single cylinder Compression ignition engine was carried with pyrogallol concentration of 0 parts per million (ppm), 250ppm, 500ppm and 750ppm with neem oil biodiesel. The engine performance and emission tests were carried out at a rated speed of 1500 rpm under different loading conditions. An improved performance and emission characteristics of engine was found with addition of pyrogallol as additives in neem oil biodiesel

Origins of the midlatitude Pacific decadal variability

Analysis of multiple climate simulations shows much of the midlatitude Pacific decadal variability to be composed of two simultaneously occurring elements: One is a stochastically driven, passive ocean response to the atmosphere while the other is oscillatory and represents a coupled mode of the ocean‐atmosphere system. ENSO processes are not required to explain the origins of the decadal variability. The stochastic variability is driven by random variations in wind stress and heat flux associated with internal atmospheric variability but amplified by a factor of 2 by interactions with the ocean. We also found a coupled mode of the ocean‐atmosphere system, characterized by a significant power spectral peak near 1 cycle/20 years in the region of the midlatitude North Pacific and Kuroshio Extension. Ocean dynamics appear to play a critical role in this coupled air/sea mode

Development of Expert System for Four Bar Mechanism

In this study, an expert system was developed for a quadricycle four bar mechanism with control of transmission angle. Different types of available synthesis methods are studied and the suitable synthesis procedure is selected for developing the expert system

High-resolution tropical channel model simulations of tropical cyclone climatology and intraseasonal-to-interannual variability

We tailored a tropical channel configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to study tropical cyclone (TC) activity and associated climate variabilities. This tropical channel model (TCM) covers from 308S to 508N at 27-km horizontal resolution, with physics parameterizations carefully selected to achieve more realistic simulations of TCs and large-scale climate mean states. We performed 15-member ensembles of retrospective simulations from 1982 to 2016 hurricane seasons. A thorough comparison with observations demonstrates that the TCM yields significant skills in simulating TC activity climatology and variabilities in each basin, as well as TC physical structures. The correlation of the ensemble averaged accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) with observations in the western North Pacific (WNP), eastern North Pacific (ENP), and North Atlantic (NAT) is 0.80, 0.64, and 0.61, respectively, but is insignificant in the north Indian Ocean (NIO). Moreover, the TCM-simulated modulations of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) on the large-scale environment and TC genesis also agree well with observations. To examine the TCM’s potential for seasonal TC prediction, the model is used to forecast the 2017 and 2018 hurricane seasons, using bias-corrected sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from the CFSv2 seasonal prediction results. The TCM accurately predicts the hyperactive 2017 NAT hurricane season and near-normal WNP and ENP hurricane seasons when initialized in May. In addition, the TCM accurately predicts TC activity in the NAT and WNP during the 2018 season, but underpredicts ENP TC activity, in association with a poor ENSO forecast

Lie group analysis for the effect of viscosity and thermophoresis particle deposition on free convective heat and mass transfer in the presence of suction/injection

An analysis has been carried out to study heat and mass transfer characteristics of an incompressible and Newtonian fluid having temperature-dependent fluid viscosity and thermophoresis particle deposition over a vertical stretching surface with variable stream condition. The Rosseland approximation is used to describe the radiative heat flux in the energy equation. The vertical surface is assumed to be permeable so as to allow for possible wall suction or injection. The governing differential equations are derived and transformed using Lie group analysis. The transformed equations are solved numerically by applying Runge-Kutta Gill scheme with shooting technique. Favorable comparisons with previously published work on various special cases of the problem are obtained. Numerical results for the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles for a prescribed temperature-dependent fluid viscosity and thermophoresis particle deposition parameters are presented graphically to elucidate the influence of the various physical parameters