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1
Preti, Jeferson [UNESP]. "Projeto e desenvolvimento de robô cartesiano de baixo custo para manipulação de produtos em linhas de média cadência." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/115741.
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000802124.pdf: 3623921 bytes, checksum: c5cdec0e844145a402028c647f8dcc90 (MD5)<br>Este trabalho apresenta a análise, o projeto e o desenvolvimento de um manipulador robótico industrial de baixo custo, para linhas de produção que demandem menos de 10 ciclos de manipulação por minuto, denominadas de média e baixa cadência. O aparato proposto possui potencial para contribuir na melhoria das condições de utilização de células robóticas no cenário industrial nacional, auxiliando na superação dos desafios existentes para Implantação de células robóticas por pequenas e médias empresas, nomeadamente, custos de implantação, manutenção e reprogramação/reconfiguração. O manipulador robótico industrial foi projetado considerando uma estrutura metálica leve de baixo custo, com elementos mecânicos de precisão média e não dedicados, facilmente encontrados no mercado nacional. Além disso, o manipulador robótico foi projetado para ser capaz de alcançar velocidades médias provendo tempos de ciclo de operação quase equivalentes aos apresentados por robôs polares articulados convencionais, nas mesmas aplicações. O sistema de controle foi concebido para não entregar o dispendioso sistema convencional de hardware centralizado de controle de eixos, sendo esta operação realizada por algoritmo computacional executado no mesmo PC responsável pela gestão e integração dos processos. Assim, a operação emprega dispositivos acionadores descentralizados considerando o envio dos sinais de referência diretamente aos acionadores, possibilitando a compensação das restrições dos esforços da estrutura com recursos de suavização de trajetórias. A integração com o usuário possui uma interface gráfica de manipulação amigável que permite facilmente os processos de operação, manutenção e reconfiguração, com recursos de supervisão, histórico de falhas e assistência remota. Por fim, um protótipo do manipulador robótico industrial proposto é apresentado demonstrando as principais...<br>This master dissertation presents the analysis, design and development of an industrial low cost robotic manipulator for production lines that require manipulation less than 10 cycles per minute, denominated medium and low cadense lines. The proposed apparatus has the potential to contribute improving the use of robotic cells in the national industrial scene, helping to overcome the existing challenges in deployment of robotic cellis by small and medium enterprises, in particular, implementation costs, maintenance and reprogramming/reconfiguration. The industrial robot manipulator was designed considering a low cost light steel structure, with average precision non-delicated mechanical elements, easily found on the national market. In addition, the robotic manipulator was designed to be able to achieve average speeds with times of operation almost equivalent to those presented by conventional polar articulated robots in the same applications. The control system was designed without the costly centralized hardware system of axes control, this operation being performed by computer algorithm running on the same PC responsible for the management and integration of processe. Thus, the operation employs descentralized devices providing the reference signals directly to the actuators, allowing the mitigation of the efforts restrictions in structure with programmable smoothing of trajectories. Integration wiht the user is designed to have a user-friendly graphical interface allowing an easy handling of operation processes, maintenance and reconfiguration, with resources for supervision, fault history and remote assistance. Finally, a prototype of the proposed industrial robot manipulator is presented in order to corroborate the construction and operational characteristics
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Elliott, Grant Stephen. "Improving customer service contact root-cause analysis." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/50095.
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Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2009.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 50).<br>When a customer calls or e-mails customer service, a customer service agent will diagnose the issue, render a solution, and then wrap-up the call or e-mail. For many customer service departments, this wrap-up process requires the agent to classify the reason the customer contacted customer service. Typically, this classification is done by assigning a code that describes the reason for a contact. Additionally, if a contact requires a concession, the agent will classify the reason the customer requires a concession, and select an appropriate code. These codes are used by the various business teams within the company to identify and correct failures in their processes. Therefore, these codes should drive down to the root cause for a contact or concession to allow for efficient correction. Possessing codes that do not clearly identify the root cause for a contact are of little or no use for the company. Additionally, the codes must be developed in such a way that they can be accurately chosen by either the agent or the customer. Having agents select the wrong code not only obscures the true cause for a contact, but also creates additional work due to the process involved in determining the correct code. This thesis looks at the challenges inherent in developing a list of codes that both provides clear insight into the root cause for customer contacts, and can be accurately selected by the customer service agent or the customer.<br>by Grant Stephen Elliott.<br>S.M.<br>M.B.A.
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Butcher, Kenneth John, and n/a. "Effects of Relational Outcomes on Customer Loyalty." Griffith University. School of Tourism and Hotel Management, 2000. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20050914.140054.
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Customer loyalty in services is the focus of the research. The research problem sought to determine both indirect and indirect effects of relational outcomes on customer loyalty, conceptualised as a psychological state. Relational outcomes are defined as: the thoughts, feelings, and relationships perceived by customers arising from the interaction with a service employee. This class of variable is differentiated from other relational factors such as the characteristics of the actors in the interaction and their behaviours. The effects of relational outcome antecedents were compared to service evaluation antecedents such as customer satisfaction, quality, and value. Customer loyalty was modelled as a psychological state and grounded in the unique characteristics of services. The pioneering work of Kingstrom (1983) was used as a basis for extending the literature. Customer loyalty is an important variable for both services marketing researchers and industry. Accordingly, the research was justified on both theoretical and managerial grounds. Four factors inspired the identification of the research gap: a lack of service loyalty research grounded in service characteristics, lack of studies that conceptualised loyalty as a psychological state, inadequacy of service evaluation measures to predict customer loyalty, and the perceived importance of social interaction to service outcomes. Data collection included pilot studies, re-analysis of published literature, and three major studies. In the first major study, 23 informants provided insights into the nature of three specific relational outcomes: friendship, social comfort, and social regard. The second study was a cross-sectional survey of 190 hair-dressing customers. The specific relationships between friendship, social regard, social comfort, value for money, service encounter satisfaction, perceived core service quality, and customer loyalty were established in this study. New scales were also developed for friendship, social regard, social comfort, and customer loyalty. A third study collected survey data from 406 customers of hairdressing salons, cafes, and naturopathic clinics. Hypothesised relationships were tested through three nested structural equation models. The results indicate that relational outcomes in general are important to customer loyalty. Their effects on loyalty as a psychological state are both direct and indirect. The strength of the effects of relational outcomes on loyalty compares favourably with the effects of service evaluation measures on loyalty. The construct of friendship between individual customer and service employee was found to be related significantly and positively with customer loyalty. The effect of personal friendship appears to have as strong an effect as perceptions of core quality and service encounter satisfaction. Another major finding was that the two relational outcomes of social comfort and social regard both had an indirect influence on customer loyalty. This effect was mediated through the service evaluation constructs of perceived core service quality and service encounter satisfaction. Social comfort affected both quality and satisfaction whereas social regard only influenced quality. However, the impact of social regard on core quality was substantial. Friendship was not found to have a significant relationship with either quality or satisfaction. These findings suggest that there is a temporal dimension to the influence of relational outcomes. Both social regard and social comfort appear to be more important in the early stages of customer-service provider interaction. It also appears that customers evaluate the core quality of everyday services such as hair salons, cafes, and naturopaths using social cues such as feeling well regarded. A further major finding was the lack of a significant relationship between value for money and psychological loyalty in both quantitative studies. Effects of quality, satisfaction, and friendship appear to be important to loyalty development whereas customer value is not. This finding suggests that value for money may be related directly to actual purchase behaviour or repurchase intentions rather than mediated through psychological feelings of loyalty. Hence, evaluations which reflect pricing considerations are less likely to be associated with psychological loyalty than more relationally oriented constructs. The findings indicate important implications for both marketers and researchers. Marketing strategists need to be clear about pursuing either a loyalty or a value for money strategy. The former may not result from the latter. Relational outcomes lead to psychological loyalty but their interactive effects operate differently. Friendship with a service employee provides a direct contribution to loyalty development. Whereas social regard and social comfort affect customers' evaluation of the service. Pursuing a relational strategy will have implications for the way frontline staff are selected and trained. Theoretical implications include: using the relational outcomes as a basis for middle range theory development, support for the linear-additive measurement approach, use of laddering techniques to determine relevant influencing variables, and additional explanatory power to the service recovery literature. In conclusion, a unidimensional construct of psychological loyalty, grounded in service characteristics, was developed, tested, and evaluated for wide application to service industries. Three specific relational antecedents: Friendship, social regard, and social comfort were found to be important to the development of customer loyalty. The research highlighted how these relational outcomes interacted with service evaluation measures to produce loyal customers. Accordingly, Kingstrom's (1983) work has been extended.
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McManus, Lisa, and n/a. "An Examination of Customer Accounting in an Australian Context." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2006. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20070111.145255.
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This thesis reports on a study that examined customer accounting (CA) in Australian companies. The broad aims of the thesis are to develop an understanding of the organisational role played by CA practice and the role accounting plays in providing information about a firm's customer base. Three empirical phases have been undertaken in the study. The first phase involved exploratory interviews with accountants and marketers from a number of Australian firms. The second phase comprised an in-depth case study that involved the development of a segmental customer profitability analysis in a major Australian telecommunications company. The third empirical phase involved the administration of a survey questionnaire to chief accountants and marketing managers from a number of large Australian companies. A number of significant findings are reported and include: (1) A level of CA practice has been observed that is reasonably in line with what was anticipated based on the minimal previous academic interest in this area. (2) There appears to be a potential for further CA development in Australian companies. (3) The interview findings identified 'short-term tactical decisions' and 'focus attention on maximising customer value' as the two most important organisational roles CA may play. (4) CA systems were found to provide important information for marketing resource allocation decisions, customer retention decisions, customer service management decisions and customer pricing decisions. (5) The main barriers to CA implementation identified during the segmental CPA case study and exploratory interviews concerned information technology and data acquisition problems. This finding was supported by the results of the survey questionnaire phase of the study where in addition to these two barriers, 'other competing organisational priorities' was rated highly as an impediment to CA system development. (6) Some support was found for the proposed relationships between CA and the contingent factors of company size, customisation, and organisational structure. (7) Limited support was found for the proposed positive association between CA systems and competition intensity and marketing orientation. (8) No support was found for the proposed relationships between perceived environmental uncertainty, organisational strategy, organisational performance and CA systems. (9) Customisation was the only contingent factor found to have a significant impact upon the potential of CA to aid management.
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Preti, Jeferson. "Projeto e desenvolvimento de robô cartesiano de baixo custo para manipulação de produtos em linhas de média cadência /." Bauru, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/115741.
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Orientador: Flávio Alessandro Serrão Gonçalves<br>Banca: Diego Colon<br>Banca: Fernando Pinhabel Marafão<br>Resumo: Este trabalho apresenta a análise, o projeto e o desenvolvimento de um manipulador robótico industrial de baixo custo, para linhas de produção que demandem menos de 10 ciclos de manipulação por minuto, denominadas de média e baixa cadência. O aparato proposto possui potencial para contribuir na melhoria das condições de utilização de células robóticas no cenário industrial nacional, auxiliando na superação dos desafios existentes para Implantação de células robóticas por pequenas e médias empresas, nomeadamente, custos de implantação, manutenção e reprogramação/reconfiguração. O manipulador robótico industrial foi projetado considerando uma estrutura metálica leve de baixo custo, com elementos mecânicos de precisão média e não dedicados, facilmente encontrados no mercado nacional. Além disso, o manipulador robótico foi projetado para ser capaz de alcançar velocidades médias provendo tempos de ciclo de operação quase equivalentes aos apresentados por robôs polares articulados convencionais, nas mesmas aplicações. O sistema de controle foi concebido para não entregar o dispendioso sistema convencional de hardware centralizado de controle de eixos, sendo esta operação realizada por algoritmo computacional executado no mesmo PC responsável pela gestão e integração dos processos. Assim, a operação emprega dispositivos acionadores descentralizados considerando o envio dos sinais de referência diretamente aos acionadores, possibilitando a compensação das restrições dos esforços da estrutura com recursos de suavização de trajetórias. A integração com o usuário possui uma interface gráfica de manipulação amigável que permite facilmente os processos de operação, manutenção e reconfiguração, com recursos de supervisão, histórico de falhas e assistência remota. Por fim, um protótipo do manipulador robótico industrial proposto é apresentado demonstrando as principais...<br>Abstract: This master dissertation presents the analysis, design and development of an industrial low cost robotic manipulator for production lines that require manipulation less than 10 cycles per minute, denominated medium and low cadense lines. The proposed apparatus has the potential to contribute improving the use of robotic cells in the national industrial scene, helping to overcome the existing challenges in deployment of robotic cellis by small and medium enterprises, in particular, implementation costs, maintenance and reprogramming/reconfiguration. The industrial robot manipulator was designed considering a low cost light steel structure, with average precision non-delicated mechanical elements, easily found on the national market. In addition, the robotic manipulator was designed to be able to achieve average speeds with times of operation almost equivalent to those presented by conventional polar articulated robots in the same applications. The control system was designed without the costly centralized hardware system of axes control, this operation being performed by computer algorithm running on the same PC responsible for the management and integration of processe. Thus, the operation employs descentralized devices providing the reference signals directly to the actuators, allowing the mitigation of the efforts restrictions in structure with programmable smoothing of trajectories. Integration wiht the user is designed to have a user-friendly graphical interface allowing an easy handling of operation processes, maintenance and reconfiguration, with resources for supervision, fault history and remote assistance. Finally, a prototype of the proposed industrial robot manipulator is presented in order to corroborate the construction and operational characteristics<br>Mestre
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Sappey, Jennifer Robyn, and n/a. "Flexible Delivery in Australian Higher Education and its Implications for the Organisation of Academic Work." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2006. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20070228.110927.
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This doctoral research explores the implications for the employment relationship of the intersection between employment relations and customer relations. The context for the research is Australian higher education - specifically those university workplaces which are strongly market focused and where resourcing is inadequate to meet customer expectations. Traditionally, serving one's customer has meant providing goods or services (as requested by the customer) and doing so with courtesy (as defined by social custom). The customer was clearly outside the traditional employment relationship between employer and employee, although a focus of its output. However, in the context of post-Fordist production systems and post-modern values including the rise of consumption, there has occurred an intersection of product and labour markets which has led to changes to the employment relationship and the labour process. The thesis answers the questions: In higher education, does the student-as-customer have significant influence on the organisation of work? If so, does this constitute a reconfigured model of the employment relationship? The rationale for re-examining the employment relationship in the context of changing consumption patterns lies in the search for more extensive explanations of factors which influence the labour process with the suggestion that consumption is of increasing relevance for industrial relations theory and practice (see for example Heery 1993; Frenkel, Korczynski, Shire and Tam 1999a). The growth of a culture of consumption and changing consumption patterns are symptomatic of change which is central to the Australian economy as a whole and to higher education in particular (Usher, Bryant and Johnson 1997; Scott 1995a). In this context the doctoral research explores the social relations involved in the process of Australian higher education as a service encounter. It examines the implications for the organisation of work in particular, and the traditional bipartite employment relationship in general (between employer and employee although it is noted that the state has a peripheral role), of the student's newly constructed status of customer. The research focus is on flexible delivery which is seen as a key strategic response by higher education institutions to meet their perceptions of their customers' needs and wants. Flexible delivery is a pedagogy, a marketing tool and a form of work organisation and is a fertile domain within which to seek the intersection of employment relations and customer relations. In keeping with the labour process ethnographic tradition, this research employs Burawoy's (1991) methodology of Extended Case Method. This doctoral research raises critical issues related to the incongruence between current Australian national research ethics regimes and long established ethnographic methods employing participant observation. The practical consequences of the national research ethics regime for empirical research are explored in the concluding chapter. The data identifies that university managements' preoccupation with customer relations has undermined the traditional employment relationship between employing institution and academic. While the academic employee in the service encounter is engaged in the primary relationship of the bipartite employment relationship, management's incorporation of the student-customer into formal organisational processes which may lead to control over the organisation of work, potentially brings into being a tripartite employment relationship between employee/employer/customer. In such a model, customer relations is no longer merely the output of the employment relationship but a process within it, with customers acting as management's agents of control. This thesis introduces the concept of the customer as partial-employer. The thesis findings challenge the current management paradigm of customer focus as a 'win-win' situation. In Australian higher education customer focused strategies have emerged from managerial assumptions about student-customer needs and wants, specifically those of flexibility and value-for-money. The unintended consequence of these assumptions on the academic labour process has been a significant shift in the balance of power between academic educator and student at the level of the service encounter, with the subjugation of traditional academic authority to the power of the consumer in what has become a market relationship.
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Aroca, Rafael Vidal. "Plataforma Rob?tica de Baix?ssimo Custo para Rob?tica Educacional." Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2012. http://repositorio.ufrn.br:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/15206.
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Previous issue date: 2012-12-17<br>Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico<br>Robots are present each time more on several areas of our society, however they are
still considered expensive equipments that are restricted to few people. This work con-
sists on the development of control techniques and architectures that make possible the
construction and programming of low cost robots with low programming and building
complexity. One key aspect of the proposed architecture is the use of audio interfaces to
control actuators and read sensors, thus allowing the usage of any device that can produce
sounds as a control unit of a robot. The work also includes the development of web ba-
sed programming environments that allow the usage of computers or mobile phones as
control units of the robot, which can be remotely programmed and controlled. The work
also includes possible applications of such low cost robotic platform, including mainly its
educational usage, which was experimentally validated by teachers and students of seve-
ral graduation courses. We also present an analysis of data obtained from interviews done
with the students before and after the use of our platform, which confirms its acceptance
as a teaching support tool<br>Os rob?s est?o cada vez mais presentes nas mais diversas atividades da sociedade,
por?m ainda s?o considerados equipamentos caros e restritos para poucas pessoas. Neste
trabalho, propomos uma arquitetura de controle e um conjunto de t?cnicas que possibi-
litam a constru??o de rob?s de baix?ssimo custo, al?m de diminuir a complexidade na
sua montagem e programa??o. Um aspecto chave da arquitetura proposta ? o uso de
interfaces de ?udio para controlar atuadores e ler sensores, permitindo assim o uso de
qualquer dispositivo que produza sons como unidade de controle de um rob?. Tamb?m
desenvolvemos ferramentas de programa??o baseadas em ambientes web que permitem o
uso de computadores ou telefones celulares como unidades de controle de um rob?, que
pode ser programado e controlado remotamente. O trabalho tamb?m contempla poss?veis
aplica??es de tal plataforma rob?tica de baix?ssimo custo, incluindo principalmente o seu
uso educacional, que foi validado experimentalmente, por professores e alunos de v?rias
disciplinas de gradua??o. Apresentamos uma an?lise de dados de entrevistas realizadas
com os alunos, antes e ap?s o uso da plataforma, que confirmam a sua aceita??o como
ferramenta de apoio ao ensino
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Centeno, Mário Lobo. "Projeto e construção de um veículo subaquático não tripulado de baixo custo." reponame:Repositório Institucional da FURG, 2007. http://repositorio.furg.br/handle/1/3480.
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Dissertação(mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Oceânica, Escola de Engenharia, 2007.<br>Submitted by Lilian M. Silva (lilianmadeirasilva@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-23T20:52:40Z
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Previous issue date: 2007<br>A escassez de alguns recursos naturais como petróleo e gás na superfície terrestre, têm
feito com que a raça humana volte sua atenção para as profundezas dos oceanos nestas últimas décadas. Os ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicle) possuem função importante para o estudo, preservação e execução de tarefas em ambiente subaquático com segurança. Infelizmente no Brasil, as iniciativas de produzir um ROV com tecnologia nacional e de baixo custo, quando comparado a equivalentes importados, são ainda raras e se restringem a algumas poucas instituições acadêmicas, não tendo sido localizado nenhum fabricante comercial deste tipo de veículo no país. Visando preencher esta lacuna, o presente trabalho deu continuidade ao projeto e construção de um ROV de baixo custo iniciado por Moraes em 2005, do qual efetivamente foi aproveitado o projeto estrutural mecânico, que através de pequenas modificações, ganhou uma câmera de vídeo, propulsores mais potentes, e sistema de iluminação. A eletrônica embarcada foi totalmente modificada visando atender às novas exigências de potência do sistema, e de funções antes inexistentes tais como: zoom, foco,nível de iluminação e controle de trajetória efetivado através de um único joystick. O novo modelo de acelerômetro empregado permitiu a medição de aceleração em três eixos ortogonais. Na fase final do trabalho foi incorporado ao ROV um altímetro, o que propiciou alguns resultados experimentais envolvendo controle de profundidade em malha fechada. No último capítulo desta dissertação foram incluídas algumas conclusões e considerações que
deverão colaborar para futuras melhorias deste projeto.<br>The scarcity of some natural resources as oil and gas in the terrestrial surface has called human race attention toward the deepness of the oceans in these last decades. ROVs(Remotely Operated Vehicles) have important function for the study, preservation and execution of tasks in subaqueous environment with security. In Brazil, the initiatives to produce a ROV with national technology and low cost, when compared with imported devices, are still rare and restrict to some academic institutions, not having been found commercial manufacturer of this type of vehicle in the country. Aiming to fill this gap, the present work gave continuity to the project and construction of the ROV of low cost initiated by Moraes in 2005, from which effectively the mechanical structural project was used and, through small modifications, it was incorporaded a video camera, more powerful propellants, and lighting system. The embarked electronics was totally modified aiming to supply the new requirements of power system, and functions before inexistent such as zoom, focus, level of illumination and control of trajectory accomplished through only one joystick. The new model of accelerometer employed allows the measurement of acceleration in three orthogonal axes. In the final phase of the work an altimeter was incorporated to the ROV, which propitiated some experimental results in depth closed loop control. In the last chapter of this dissertation were enclosed some conclusions and considerations that will collaborate for future improvements in this project.
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Wilkins, Hugh Charles, and n/a. "A Structural Model of Satisfaction and Brand Attitude in Hotels." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2006. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20061023.160143.
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This thesis is about the customer experience in hotels. The thesis evaluates the customer experience in relation to the antecedents of behavioural loyalty. Behavioural loyalty is evaluated in relation to customer satisfaction, brand trust and brand attitude. Customer satisfaction is also evaluated in relation to the antecedents of hotel performance, service quality and perceived value. The broad research underpinning this research is: How do consumers perceive and relate to luxury and first class hotel brands? The hotel industry is a large and highly diverse industry that includes a wide range of property styles, uses and qualities (Chon & Sparrowe, 2000; Go & Pine, 1995; Olsen, 1996; Powers & Barrows, 1999). The industry covers the spectrum of small, medium and large enterprises (Brotherton, 2003; Jones, 2002) and makes a significant contribution to national and international economies. The research incorporated data collection in three stages. The first stage was a qualitative study of consumers who self selected as first class or luxury consumers. The data from the focus groups were used to develop items for inclusion in a survey instrument. The focus groups data, together with information gathered from a literature review, were used to develop scales across a number of hotel performance dimensions. In addition scales were included in the survey instrument on customer satisfaction, perceived value, brand trust, brand attitude and behavioural loyalty. The second stage of the research was a pilot study with the survey instrument being distributed to a convenience sample. The data collected at this stage were used to purify and refine the survey instrument. The final stage was data collected from consumers in a number of Australian hotels. The resultant data set comprised 693 completed and useable responses. The data were examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to confirm the hotel performance and other dimensions. The resultant dimensions showed good psychometric properties. A number of hypotheses were proposed in the thesis and examined using structural equation modelling. Although two hypotheses were rejected the resultant structural model showed strong relationships between the dimensions included. The research identified that service quality is a strong contributor to behavioural loyalty. The stronger pathway from service quality to behavioural loyalty was through customer satisfaction ( = 0.63) although the pathway through brand attitude ( = 0.22) was also significant. Both customer satisfaction and service quality had a significant effect on brand trust and service quality also influenced brand attitude. A number of recommendations for further research were made. These included the replication of this study in different geographic and industry contexts.
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Parthasarathy, Sailashri 1982. "Application of artificial intelligence techniques for root cause analysis of customer support calls." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111276.
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Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017.<br>Thesis: S.M. in Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Engineering, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2017.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-68).<br>Dell Technologies seeks to use the advancements in the field of artificial intelligence to improve its products and services. This thesis aims to implement artificial intelligence techniques in the context of Dell's Client Solutions Division, specifically to analyze the root cause of customer calls so actions can be taken to remedy them. This improves the customer experience while reducing the volume of calls, and hence costs, to Dell. This thesis evaluated the external vendor landscape for text analytics, developed an internal proof-of-concept model using open source algorithms, and explored other applications for artificial intelligence within Dell. The external technologies were not a good fit for this use-case at this time. The internal model achieved an accuracy of 72%, which was above the acceptable internal threshold of 65%, thus making it viable to replace manual analytics with an artificial intelligence model. Other applications were identified in the Client Solutions division as well as in the Support and Services, Supply Chain, and Sales and Marketing divisions. Our recommendations include developing a production model from the internal proof-of-concept model, improving the quality of the call logs, and exploring the use of artificial intelligence across the business. Towards that end, the specific recommendations are: (i) to build division-based teams focused on deploying artificial intelligence technologies, (ii) to test speech analytics, and (iii) to develop a Dell-wide Center of Excellence. The division-based teams are estimated to incur an annual cost $1.5M per team while the Center of Excellence is estimated to cost $1.8M annually.<br>by Sailashri Parthasarathy.<br>M.B.A.<br>S.M. in Engineering Systems
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Patiar, Anoop Kumar, and n/a. "Managers' Perception of Market Competition, Transformational Leadership, Use of MAS Information and Performance: A Cross-Cultural Study in Hotels." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2005. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20070131.094411.
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Increasing market competition, globalisation, technological advancements and customers' awareness of service quality has contributed to environmental uncertainty within the hotel industry (Atkinson & Brander Brown, 2001; Brander Brown & Atkinson, 2001; Harris & Mongiello, 2001; Sanchez, 1997). Several researchers argue that managers' perceived uncertainty can be better managed if the general manager practises a transformational leadership style (i.e., the superior shares the organisational vision with subordinates and genuinely motivates them) (Hinkin & Tracey, 1994; Lockwood & Jones, 1989; Tracey & Hinkin, 1996; Zetie, Sparrow, Woodfield & Kilmartin, 1994; Zohar, 1994). Furthermore, the use of broad scope MAS (management accounting systems) information helps to reduce uncertainty and complexity, thereby improving decision-making (Biema & Greenwald, 1997; Chen, 1996; Chenhall & Morris, 1986; Gordon & Narayanan, 1984; Mia & Clarke, 1999; Sanchez, 1997). This study examined the relationship between hotel department managers' perception of the intensity of market competition, their general manager's (i.e., the superior's) transformational leadership style and the use of broad scope MAS information, and its effect on departmental performance (i.e., financial, non-financial and overall change in performance). In addition, this study investigated the moderating effect of national culture on the above relationship using Hofstede's (1980) theoretical framework including power distance and individualism dimensions, and undertaking the study in the Australian and Indian hotel industry. A cross-sectional design was used to present a snapshot of the relationship mentioned in the previous paragraph. In particular, two research methods-a self-administered postal survey questionnaire and face-to-face interviews-were used to improve the generalisation of the results. In total, 82 four and five star hotels (66 hotels in Australia and the remaining 16 in India) with more than 160 bedrooms returned completed and usable questionnaires. From each of the hotels and resorts, food and beverage as well as the room's department managers participated in the study. The data was gathered with the help of well-established instruments that were adapted for the hotel environment. For example, Gupta and Govindrajan's (1984) departmental performance scale; Khandwalla's (1972) market competition scale; Bass and Avolio's (1997) MLQ-5X transformational leadership scale; Chenhall and Morris's (1986) broad scope MAS information scale and Hofstede's (1980) national culture scale. In addition, major issues covered in the survey questionnaire were further discussed in face-to-face interviews with selected hotel department managers. While the quantitative data was analysed using standard descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics (i.e., t-test and hierarchical multiple regression techniques), qualitative data was analysed using summary tables. The quantitative and qualitative analysis resulting from the survey questionnaire and face-to-face interviews with hotel department managers provided support for the two sets of findings. Firstly, the basic performance model revealed a significant and positive three-way interaction between market competition, transformational leadership style, broad scope MAS information use and departmental performance consisting of financial performance, overall change in departmental performance as well as change in departmental revenue in the past two years prior to the study. Further analysis confirmed that improvement in departmental performance was apparent when general managers practised high, rather than low transformational leadership style, with no change in the level of market competition and broad scope MAS information use. While a significant and positive direct effect of transformational leadership and broad scope MAS information use on departmental performance was evident, a significant and negative direct effect of market competition on departmental performance was also found. Secondly, Australian and Indian department managers exhibited, a significant difference in national culture, transformational leadership, market competition and MAS use, but no significant difference in departmental performance was evident. The moderating effect of national culture on the basic performance model showed that in India, culture had no effect on the three-way interaction. However, in Australia, a significant and positive three-way interaction was only evident for overall changes in departmental revenue. Perhaps this long-term favourable outcome in Australia is due to the high transformational leadership style of hotel general managers, department managers' perception of high market competition and their increased use of broad scope MAS information. The theoretical and managerial implications of the study's results, limitations and future research directions are also discussed in the thesis.
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Stavros, Constantino, and n/a. "Relationship Marketing in Australian Professional Sport: An Organisational Perspective." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2005. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20090522.165115.
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Relationship marketing has become a fundamental concept within modern marketing thought. Some authors even suggest it is the fundamental concept. Its rise to prominence has seen it become a unifying force within the marketing discipline given its application to a whole range of areas. It promises benefits to organisations that can be distilled down to greater profits over the longer term, with less cost. The focus of relationship marketing is relatively simple. Rather than acquiring customers, the retention and development of customers is emphasised. Regrettably, the implementation of relationship marketing is not as straightforward as its definition. It requires at the very least a long-term outlook, an embracing of technology and a commitment to a customer focus. If relationship marketing is such a critical element in modern marketing, it follows that its application across industry sectors be examined. Sport is one such industry and has coincidentally emerged as a major business sector in the same time-frame as relationship marketing's maturity. As the markets for sport have grown, so too has the sophistication of the sport marketer. From amateur, myopic beginnings, sport continues to claim a strong grip on the cultural identity of countries such as Australia. Buoyed by strong media interest, attendance at sporting events continues to grow, albeit across a much larger choice-set. The road ahead is not necessarily bountiful however. Information presented in Chapter 1 of this thesis suggests that the frequency of individual attendance at major sports in Australia is declining, despite some positive overall attendance figures. In essence, it appears that loyal customers are being replaced by newer, less committed ones. While this might not be instantly damaging, it does require sport marketers to ensure that strong levels of identification with their products are developed. All of this is supported by the existing literature that has recognised that sport can likely benefit greatly from the implementation and application of relationship marketing, but is in urgent need of further study. These scenarios suggest a need to understand where relationship marketing in sport currently rests and this thesis answers the call and asks the following research questions: RQ1) To what extent do professional sporting organisations in Australia undertake relationship marketing; RQ2) what strategies do they employ and RQ3) what are the issues faced in implementing a relationship marketing approach? This thesis takes an organisational perspective, across multiple-cases in major professional sport and considers the sport-consumer relationship exclusively. It is the first study of its kind in this area and adds significantly to the body of knowledge, both within sport marketing and the broader concept of relationship marketing. It indicates that while relationship marketing is acknowledged and indeed welcomed as a concept by practitioners, their efforts at implementation have been primitive, largely unplanned and generally sporadic. More than often they reflect a reactive rather than proactive strategic approach. A range of barriers are presented and discussed as are some examples of organisations that have incorporated some parts of a relationship marketing philosophy into their structure. A conceptual model in the final chapter of this thesis synthesises the issues extracted from the various cases and existing literature. It depicts a challenging road ahead for professional sport organisations.
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Willeke, Larissa, and Wiktor Suvander. "Incomplete Delivery : Description of Causes and Effects." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Kvalitetsteknik, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-98726.
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Quality defects are a common problem for producing companies, but causes and consequences are often unknown. The purpose of this thesis assignment is to develop a step-by-step analysis method for identifying the root causes of quality defects based on previously examined consequences. The first steps focus on customer recovery meanwhile the following steps concentrate on process recovery. The analysis method is process-orientated as the complete production and delivery process are scrutinized upstream by the combination of commonly used quality tools. For testing the applicability of the presented method this thesis comprises a case study conducted at one company receiving complaints about quality defects. For the Case Study Company the consequences and causes of quality defects are described, analyzed and suggestions for improvement are developed. In the investigated case, the developed method helps to identify causes and consequences of incomplete delivery, the company’s major quality problem. The upstream approach proved advantages for two reasons. First of all including the customer side guarantees that the cause analysis is limited to the relevant problems. With the help of the method the severity of consequences depending on the customers’ awareness of defects and available time can be detected. Secondly problems can be scrutinized in natural order as difficulties in production once identified can be followed step by step to the causes in a preceding step. The main causes identified in this case study are a lack of process definition and of standardization. Thus, the portrayed case suggests that regular appearances of quality defects are not a coincidence. The reasons are the underlying, possibly insufficiently defined and managed processes. The general finding of the thesis assignment is the presented analysis method that comprises a systematic process-oriented approach designed to examine consequences and causes of quality defects. In contrast to the root cause analysis approaches found in literature each analysis step is described in detail. This makes the method easy to apply in practice. Therefore the method is a valid tool to deal with a high degree of complexity. The case study proved that it is effective and efficient to scrutinize problems with these characteristics. Under different circumstances the application of single quality tools might be sufficient and hence resource effective. Further investigation is necessary since this method has only been tested in one case study.
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Kaluzhna, Yevgeniya. "Budování vztahu se zákazníky v rámci Supply Chain Managementu." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2011. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-142275.
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Application of supply chain management is still relatively recent practice, but it's importance is growing over time. Today, in the era of customer centricity, in order to become competitive firms shouldn't avoid collaboration with it's supply chain partners. Purpose of my thesis was to find out how supply chain management can contribute to building relationship with customers, who are the basis of any existing company. First part summarizes knowledge about supply chain, compeptitive strategies, customers, types of supply chains and customer relationship management. Particular part is dedicated to customer service and how supply chain management can contribute to it's improving. It describes also what meaning has customer service for future competitiveness. In second part, I presented the case of Zappos.com. E-retailer, which aligning entire functional strategies and whole supply chain to common strategic purpose managed to build excellent relationship with it's customers.
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Awasom, Nde-Asaa. "An analysis of the OPEC Reference Basket with regards to African Pricing and Spread to the WTI and Brent." Master's thesis, Faculty of Commerce, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31406.
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This study aims at analysing how African oil benchmarks within the OPEC Reference Basket relative to the WTI and Brent benchmarks which are considered as global pricing benchmarks for the period starting from 1997-2008. The Nigerian Bonny Light and Algerian Saharan blend were the two benchmarks used for this study. A time series analysis was applied to the weekly price data series set and with the aid of a breakpoint unit root test and Cusum of Squared test to determine if there was a change in the persistence of the spread of each African benchmark relative to the global benchmarks. The results for from the unit root test indicated the presence of a structural break in the price spread in 2004 for the Bonny Light benchmark and in 2005 for the Saharan blend relative to both global benchmarks. The Cusum Squared test for the four benchmark pairings indicated a change in persistence of the price spreads. The null hypothesis was rejected for the alternative hypothesis of the price spread process having a relatively high persistence value after a while. The Cusum Test results showed a change in persistence for both African benchmarks relative to the WTI benchmark and no change in persistence relative to the Brent benchmark. The results of from the Time series analysis indicated the competitive nature of African benchmarks relative to global benchmarks and this could benefit exporting countries by virtue of setting up derivative markets. The derivative markets would allow for the trade of benchmark spreads, futures contracts, options and other financial instruments for African oil producers.
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Muhdi, Rani. "Re-Engineering the Operational System to Enhance the Customer Orientation of a Mid-Size Firm: A Field Study." [Johnson City, Tenn. : East Tennessee State University], 2002. http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0319102-195053/restricted/Muhdir041002a.PDF.
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Azevedo, Diego Sousa de. "Otimização do código do sistema de navegação e controle de robôs móveis baseado em NMPC para embarcar em arquiteturas de baixo custo." Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2015. http://tede.biblioteca.ufpb.br:8080/handle/tede/7853.
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Previous issue date: 2015-10-10<br>The purpose of this study is to adapt and embed a navigation system and control of mobile robots, based on NMPC, in a low-cost board existent on the market, to provide sufficient com-putational resources so that the robot is able to converge, without losing performance, using the same horizons applied in a Laptop. The obtained results demonstrate the proposed scenario according with the experiments, proving that it is possible to use low cost boards, to a navigation system and control of mobile robots, based on NMPC, using the same predictive and control horizons applied in a Laptop.<br>A proposta desse trabalho é adaptar e embarcar um sistema de navegação e controle de robôs móveis, baseado em NMPC, em uma placa de baixo custo já existente no mercado, que dispo-nibilize recursos computacionais suficientes para que o Robô seja capaz de convergir, sem perda de desempenho e utilizando os mesmos horizontes aplicados em um Laptop. Os Resulta-dos obtidos demonstram todo o cenário proposto e de acordo com os experimentos realizados, comprovou-se que é possível o uso de placas de baixo custo, para controle de robôs móveis, baseado em NMPC, utilizando os mesmos horizontes de predição e controle aplicados em uma Laptop.
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Pinto, Danilo Sulino Silveira. "Sistema robotizado autônomo para inspeção de tubulações." Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2017. http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/7096.
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Previous issue date: 2017-03-13<br>Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG<br>During one of the most critical water crises in Brazil, in 2015, a Folha de São Paulo Journal report showed that 37 % of all water treated in Brazil does not reach the final consumer, being the failures in pipes the main cause. This master’s work addresses this problem of waste and failure in piping, for both water and sewage. In this way the characteristics of these types of pipes as well as the most common types of faults are presented. Existing inspection piping methods are also presented. And in an attempt to help reduce this pipeline waste, a pipe failure detection method was developed to achieve a low cost solution so that it can be widely used.
The developed solution involved the development of a position control method using a reinforcement learning method, Q-Learning, which allows the robot to run through the pipe without tumbling, using only a gyroscope.
It was also developed, using infrared distance sensors and an accelerometer, a method of detecting failures in which it was possible to detect faults with only 2 mm of thickness, in all the times in which the robot passed through it. The developed method is able to overcome the instability and imprecision of the infrared sensor, allowing, during the tests, the detection of all the faults in which the robot crossed, having only 1 false failure accusation in 25 m of course at a speed 60 % greater than the maximum speed of a video inspection. The results were satisfactory, but more work on increasing the inspected surface area and redundancy of fault detection is still required.<br>Durante uma das mais graves crises hídricas no Brasil, em 2015, uma reportagem da Folha de São Paulo mostrou que 37% de toda a água tratada no Brasil não chega até o consumidor final, sendo as falhas nas tubulações a principal causa. Este trabalho de mestrado aborda esse problema de desperdício e falhas em tubulações, tanto de água como de esgoto. Dessa forma são apresentadas as características desses tipos de tubulações bem como os tipos mais comuns de falhas. Os métodos de inspeção de tubulações existentes também estão apresentados. E na tentativa de auxiliar na redução do desperdício em tubulações foi desenvolvido um método de detecção de falhas de tubulações, objetivando alcançar uma solução de baixo custo para que ela possa ser amplamente utilizada.
A solução criada envolveu o desenvolvimento de um método de controle de posição utilizando um método de aprendizagem por reforço, o Q-Learning, que permite o robô percorrer a tubulação sem tombar, apenas utilizando um giroscópio.
Foi desenvolvido, utilizando sensores de distância infravermelho e um acelerômetro, um método de detecção de falhas em que se conseguiu detectar falhas com apenas 2 mm de espessura, em todas as vezes em que o robô passou por ela. O método desenvolvido é capaz de superar a instabilidade e imprecisão do sensor infravermelho, permitindo, durante os testes, a detecção de todas as falhas em que o robô atravessou, tendo apenas 1 acusação de falsa falha a cada 25 m de percurso a uma velocidade mais de 60% maior que a velocidade máxima de uma vídeo inspeção. Os resultados foram satisfatórios, porém mais trabalho no aumento da área da superfície inspecionada e na redundância da detecção de falhas ainda se faz necessário.
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Tomaz, Halan Vieira de Queiroz. "Sistema de preparo profundo do solo e sua influência no desenvolvimento da cana-de-açúcar." Universidade de São Paulo, 2014. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/11/11136/tde-05022014-093232/.
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A cana-de-açúcar é uma das mais importantes cadeias do agronegócio brasileiro, além do seu elevado destaque no contexto internacional como fonte de energia renovável e sustentável. Com a competitividade que as Usinas vem passando e pelas perspectivas de crescimento, este trabalho teve como hipóteses: i) o preparo profundo em cana-de-açúcar proporciona um maior volume de solo explorado pelas raízes; ii) o trafégo controlado de máquinas aliado ao espaçamento em fileiras duplas irá trazer uma maior população de plantas, traduzindo isso em incrementos de produtividade e redução de custos para o produtor. O objetivo geral, portanto, foi avaliar métodos de preparo do solo e desenvolver o tráfego contrololado na área, propondo assim que o produtor tenha redução nos custos com o manejo da cultura e também aumente a produtividade e longevidade do canavial. Portanto, pode-se concluir que na análise do comprimento de raízes, em todas as profundidades estudadas, o Preparo Profundo obteve comprimento, área e volume de raízes maiores estatisticamente. A Resistência do solo a penetração no tratamento Preparo Profundo, para as profundidades de 20-40 e 40-60 cm foi de 0,29 MPa e 0,45 MPa, respectivamente. Nas avaliações biométricas da parte área, o Preparo Profundo se destacou com um IAF de 7,1. Os custos das operações no momento do plantio foram bem inferiores no Preparo Profundo, sendo 33% e 58% inferiores aos Mínimo duplo e Convencional duplo, respectivamente. A movimentação do solo causada pelo sistema Preparo Profundo no preparo do solo, foi de até 80% inferior ao tratamento Convencional duplo. O tráfego controlado que o Preparo Profundo proporciona, diminui em até 70% o tráfego de máquinas na lavoura; menor consumo de combustível; redução no tempo das operações agrícolas; redução do parque de máquinas; e menor custo operacional.<br>Sugarcane is one of the most important crops in the Brazilian agribusiness chain, besides its great branch in the international context as a renewable and sustainable energy source. Through the competitiveness that sugar mills experience and through the growth perspectives of the sector, this study focuses the deep soil preparation for sugarcane crop renewal, since it provides a larger soil volume to be explored by the root system. Furthermore, the machinery traffic controlled by a smaller number of soil preparation operations, reduces farmer´s production costs. The general objective was, therefore, evaluate soil preparation methods and develop a controlled traffic system in the area, in order to propose to the farmer a cost reduction in the farm soil management along with yield increase and extension of the longevity of the crop. As a result of the imposed treatments it was possible to conclude that by the root length analysis in all depths of the Deep Soil Preparation, root length, area and volume were greater. Soil resistance to penetration in the Deep Soil Preparation system was much less in relation to the other treatments, assuming values of 0.29 MPa and 0.45 Mpa in the 20-40 and 40-60 cm layers, respectively. The above ground evaluations showed leaf area index of 7.1 for the Deep Soil Preparation, much higher in relation to the other treatments. Operation costs at planting time were much less for the Deep Soil Preparation, 33% and 58% smaller than for the Double Minimum Tillage and Double conventional, respectively. Soil movement caused by Deep Preparation was up to 80% less in relation to the Double conventional. The controlled machinery traffic that the Deep Soil Preparation provides, reduced up to 70% the farming operations, therefore presenting a lower fuel consumption, a reduction of the time used in farming operations, reduction of the machinery park, and a lower operational cost.
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Thomas, Tomas, and Tobil Poli. "Bankernas utmaningar under digitaliseringens framfart : En kvalitativ studie om hur banker hanterar förtroenderelaterade frågor gentemot sina kunder under den digitala utvecklingen." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Företagsekonomi, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-32927.
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Bakgrund: Banksektorn genomgår en digital utveckling och förändringen sker i en allt snabb takt. Nya marknadsförhållanden med regelverk, en förändrad konkurrenssituation och ett förändrat kundbeteende har ställt banksektorn inför nya utmaningar och möjligheter som bankerna behöver förhålla sig till för att upprätthålla och stärka förtroendet gentemot sina kunder. Syfte: Studiens huvudsyfte är att undersöka hur banker hanterar förtroenderelaterade frågor under den ökade digitaliseringen inom banksektorn. Vidare syftar studien till att skapa en djupare förståelse för robotiserade rådgivningsprocesser och dess påverkan på bankkundernas förtroende i samband med att den fysiska kontakten mellan bank och kund minskar. Metod: Studien är utav en kvalitativ karaktär med en abduktiv forskningsansats och baseras på intervjuer med fem respondenter med relevanta yrkesroller som berör digitalisering- och förtroendefrågor inom den svenska banksektorn. Slutsats: Studiens resultat påvisar att digitaliseringen medför nya möjligheter och utmaningar som bankerna kan dra nytta av förutsatt att dem hanterar den digitala utvecklingen på ett korrekt sätt. Resultatet tyder vidare på att bankerna behöver förhålla sig till dem förändrade marknadsförhållandena och ständigt bemöta kundernas förväntansbild.<br>Background: The banking industry is facing a digital transformation and the change is taking place at a rapid pace. New market conditions, a changing competitive situation and a changing customer behavior have put the banking industry in front of new challenges and opportunities that banks needs to manage to maintain and strengthen their customers trust towards themselves. Purpose: The main purpose of the study is to investigate how banks handles trust-related issues in the context of the increased digitalization in the banking industry. Furthermore, the study aims to create a deeper understanding of robo-advising and its impact on banking customers' trust while the physical contact between banks and customers decreases. Method: The study is of a qualitative character and follows an abductive research effort. The study is based on interviews with five respondents with relevant professional roles that concern digitalization and trust within the Swedish banking industry. Conclusion: The study's results show that digitalization brings new opportunities and challenges that banks can benefit from, given they handle the digital development properly. The result further indicates that banks need to manage the changing market conditions and constantly respond to customers' expectations.
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Chen, Shih-Hsuan, and 陳世軒. "Application of SLAM-based Autonomous Robot for Building Custom Field Street View in Google Maps." Thesis, 2017. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3ryy9d.
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碩士<br>國立臺灣大學<br>生物產業機電工程學研究所<br>105<br>This study is dedicated to the development of an automated street shooting system. In order to achieve this purpose, the system is equipped with a number of different sensors with different usage. In the field of robot vision, SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) is a technology be used to explore the unknown environment, can estimate the information of the environment and the robot''s location through repetitive observation and controlled information. Stereo vision system, which is composed of two cameras, can calculate the spatial information of the image through image processing and stereo vision theory. The disadvantage is that the accuracy of the depth of the distance calculation is easily affected by the environment such as light source, image quality, and distance. Therefore, we add the radar, which measure the distance between the sensor and the object and other related information through the Doppler effect principle. To improve the overall reliability of the measurement through the stereo vision and radar sensor using the sensor fusion approach. The results obtained by the sensor fusion can provide obstacle detection, obstacle tracking, and even provide the system to do A * path planning algorithm to dodge them. The robot will have different degrees of error because of the different quality of the road or the tire slip caused during the movement. In order to fix this, this study use SLAM to provide the location of robot to gain PID control feedback signal, which can give the robot the ability to correct the route in the process of moving indoor and outdoor. The results of the experiment get the average offset of 0.084 m and 0.125m.GPS can locate the current position through satellite, with an error from a few meters to tens of meters due to the environment. This study combines SLAM with the selection of feature points to calculate the actual location of the shooting, and the accuracy compared with the information recorded by GPS is greatly improved. This study can automatically navigate and capture the scene information on the general road or in a specific field. After the GPS information of the image is corrected by SLAM, the 360 ° panoramic image can be uploaded to the open cloud platform to let the worldwide users view local scene information or store them in a private back-end database, which make it easier for users to view and record environmental information at the time.
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Andrade, Miguel Romero Alves Pessanha de. "Custom-made root analogue zirconia implants." Master's thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10284/6320.
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O objectivo deste estudo foi conduzir uma revisão literária sobre os potenciais benefícios do uso de implantes dentários de zircónia customizados e análogos a estruturas radiculares. Uma pesquisa bibliográfica foi efectuada nas bases de dados Pub-Med e Science Direct desde 1969 a 2017. Foram explorados os seguintes itens de pesquisa: “zirconia” e “custom-made” e “dental implants”, “zirconia” e “root-analogue” e “dental implants”, “zirconia” e “anatomical” e “dental implants”, “zirconia” e “finite element” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” e ”customized” e “dental implants”, “zirconia” e “mechanical properties” e “dental implants”, “zirconia” e “biomechanical” e “dental implants”.
Um total de 611 trabalhos foram selecionados a partir das bases de dados eletrónicas, sendo que um total de 81 foram preliminarmente selecionados para leitura completa. Um total final de 59 estudos foram selecionados para este estudo. Foi verificado pelos trabalhos selecionados que o uso de materiais à base de zirconia tem aumentado recentemente devido às suas propriedades estéticas e sucesso biológico. Além disso, os implantes análogos a estruturas radiculares estão-se a tornar uma solução viável para ultrapassar limitações relacionadas com distribuição de tensões ao osso peri-implantar, estética e peri-implantite por acúmulo de biofilme. Além disso, os avanços tecnológicos recentes têm levado a novas estratégias para melhorar a morfologia e superfícies dos implantes de zircónia. Entretanto, poucos estudos ainda são encontrados para os implantes análogos a estruturas radiculares e ainda torna-se difícil a comparação de resultados dentre inúmeras geometrias e condições intrínsecas dos pacientes.<br>The aim of this study was to conduct a literature review on the potential benefits of custom-made root analogue zirconia implants. A PubMed and ScienceDirect bibliographical search was carried out from 1969 to 2017. The following search items were explored: “zirconia” and “custom-made” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “root-analogue” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “anatomical” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “finite element” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “customized” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “mechanical properties” and “dental implants”, “zirconia” and “biomechanical” and “dental implants”.
The increased interest in zirconia-based dental structures linked to aesthetic and biological outcomes have been reported in literature. Also, custom-made root analogue implants have become a viable alternative to overcome limitations concerning stress distribution, aesthetics and peri-implantitis induced by biofilms. Recent technological advances have focused on novel strategies to modify zirconia-based surfaces to accelerate osseointegration. However, only a few studies revealed mechanical and biological benefits of zirconia custom-made root analogue implants and therefore further studies should investigate the influence of different geometries and surface modification on the performance of such implants.
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CHENG, WEN-SHING, and 鄭文賢. "Development of Chat Robot Customer Service System in Cable TV Industry." Thesis, 2019. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95y3hs.
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碩士<br>中華大學<br>資訊工程學系<br>107<br>The biggest threat faced by the cable TV system industry is the competition from common carriers like Chunghwa Telecom and media services providers such as Netflix. Currently, the AI chat robot customer service system is rapidly becoming an essential communication tool for any enterprise, and these chat robots can provide marketing services to reduce the cost of manpower and time. But so far, the cable TV industry does not have a chat robot customer service system in Taiwan. Only the financial industry and telecom operators have chat robot service systems. Here, a chat robot customer service system is developed for the cable TV industry, and use the chat robot to process natural languages to achieve an accurate understanding of customer needs. Here, we explored two natural language processing techniques, LUIS and QNA Maker. We compare which semantic recognition can achieve the higher accuracy of customer understanding and find the most consistent and customer-required answers. This technical report uses LUIS natural language processing technology, combined with the LINE communication software that is quite popular in Taiwan, and implement the chat robot customer service system with LINE BOT as the carrier. Nearly 91% of people in Taiwan use LINE to deliver messages. If the service can be combined with the LINE BOT application, then there is no need to install a new app. Just add a friend and you can use it right away. If LINE BOT is not in this group, just invite LINE BOT into the group and everyone in the group can use it at the same time. For marketing, this is an automatic diffusion marketing model, which is an indispensable method in online marketing and one of the better ways for customers to have a better experience.
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LIU, CHING, and 劉晴. "Factors Influencing Customer Acceptance of Financial Robo-Advisor." Thesis, 2018. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8gwu39.
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碩士<br>國立中正大學<br>資訊管理系研究所<br>106<br>Under the increasing influence of FinTech, traditional financial institutions are facing the new reforms. Due to the rapid development and applications of artificial intelligence, many traditional concepts have been subverted. Financial robo-advisor is one of the most popular applications in FinTech services. The technology of big data and artificial intelligence has changed the traditional financial operations, which relied heavily on financial specialist in the past. Since the customer acceptance is a key factor of success, this study aims to examine the factors that influence the customer acceptance of financial robo-advisor.
The theoretical model was developed based on the mode of attitude. We used an Web survey to collect the data. The questionnaire contains 73 questions related to 12 factors, namely, involvement in financial, financial relevance, trust, compatibility, personal innovativeness, perceived value, perceived risk, playfulness, social presence, past experience, attitude and intention to use. Consequently, 287 valid responses were collected. The analytical results show that the key factors that affect the customer acceptance of financial robo-advisor are trust, compatibility, perceived value, playfulness and social presence. Finally, implications for academics and practitioners are also provided.
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Lo, Wen-Pin, and 羅文彬. "Overall Assessment by Applying Semantics Automatic Reply Robot in Hotel Customer Service System Industry." Thesis, 2018. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3647gs.
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碩士<br>國立臺北科技大學<br>工業工程與管理系<br>106<br>In recent years, the tourism industry has been booming, and it is also one of the emerging industries promoted by the government. According to the Tourism Bureau, from 2007 to 2016, the number of domestic tourists and income level of the Chinese people continued to increase, so did the number of tourists coming from abroad. The most direct benefit is the hotel industry, and this has doubled the workload of front desk customer service staff, not only to pay attention to reservation information from time to time but also to deal with customer issues in time. Some hotel front desk customer service also needs to work overtime in order to clean the hotel rooms.
In this study, we try to develop a semantics automatic reply robot for the hotel industry using python to solve the workload of the front desk customer service staff. Furthermore, the Delphi method was used to explore and collect expert opinions, and their levels and criteria were sorted. Using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), the key factors that were considered in semantics automatic reply robot in the hotel industry were analyzed.
This study found that the level weights are in order: financial level (0.09742), market level (0.32113), technical level (0.078972), customer use level (0.10773), and service quality level (0.39472) and the top three criteria were existing customer acceptance, interactive quality enhancement, and customer loyalty.
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HSIEH, YI-LING, and 謝依齡. "Development of Insurance Suggestion Models and Insurance Robot System based on Customer Insurance Gap." Thesis, 2018. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92r532.
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碩士<br>國立高雄應用科技大學<br>金融系金融資訊碩士班<br>106<br>Faced with the rapid rise of fintech, Financial and IT companies have accelerated investment into driving fintech innovations, looking forward to optimize existing business models and service models, or develop innovative technologies to subvert the existing financial business model under the wave of fintech. The fintech that Taiwan actively promotes and develops mainly consists of 5 parts: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence(AI), Robo-Advisor, Biometrics, and Blockchain. However, the current Robo-Advisor only invests in funds and does not completely cover the planning scope of financial products, especially the personal insurance product planning section. This research built an Insurance Robo-Advisor in the spirit of Robo-Advisor. Hoping that insurance demanders can interact with the system, starting from demander’s insurance gap, to find out the cheapest insurance suggestion that can make up for the demander’s insurance gap.
For this reason, this research develops different insurance suggestion models. We started with making up for the seven major insurance gaps by insurance products provided by different insurance companies, and then, sequentially considered different insurance suggestion models such as insurance principal contract and attached contract synchronous planning, budget limitation, importance of insurance demanders gap, and individual insurance contract features. In order to prove that the insurance suggestion model could indeed be implemented in the system, we developed an “Insurance Robo-Advisor” system based on the insurance suggestion model, and completed the insurance demand analysis and finally provided the best insurance suggestion products in sequence. Finally, we discussed what kind of extended application features might be necessary in the self-service insurance suggestion system. Insurance suggestion business models can then be developed based on this research.
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"Macroeconomic convergence in SACU : a panel unit root analysis." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/3421.
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M.Comm.<br>This study uses annual data for five SACU members over the period 1991-2005 to investigate the evidence for convergence in macroeconomic variables. Panel unit root test as an econometric tool is utilised together with other several approaches for this analysis. The results show significant evidence that the SACU countries have reached a reasonable level of convergence on specific macroeconomic variables. This can be attributed to common economic policies and institutional features. It is also evident that the countries that are members of the CMA show a dramatically higher convergence rate. As far as monetary policy is concerned, a high degree of convergence has been achieved in SACU. However, the results show no convergence on fiscal policies. This could be attributed to data constraint on debt to GDP which was used as a proxy for fiscal policy.
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Kharub, Isha. "iRobot : conceptualising SERVBOT for humanoid social robots." Thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:68369.
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Services are intangible in nature and, as a result, it is often difficult to measure the quality of the service. The service is usually delivered by a human to a human customer and the service literature shows SERVQUAL can be used to measure the quality of the service. However, the use of social robots during the pandemic is speeding up the process of employing social roots in frontline service settings. An extensive review of the literature shows there is a lack of an empirical model to assess the perceived service quality provided by a social robot. Furthermore, the social robot literature highlights key differences between human service and social robots. For example, scholars have highlighted the importance of entertainment and engagement in the adoption of social robots in the service industry. However, it is unclear whether the SERVQUAL dimensions are appropriate to measure social robots’ service quality. This master’s project will conceptualise the SERVBOT model to assess a social robot’s service quality. It identifies reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and entertainment as the five dimensions of SERVBOT. Further, the research will investigate how these five factors influence emotional and social engagement and intention to use the social robot in a concierge service setting. To conduct the research, a 2 x 1 (CONTROL vs SERVBOT) x (Concierge) between-subject experiment was undertaken and a total of 232 responses were collected for both stages. The results indicate that entertainment has a positive influence on emotional engagement when service is delivered by a human concierge. Further, assurance had a positive influence on social engagement when a human concierge provided the service. When a social robot concierge delivered the service, empathy and entertainment both influenced emotional engagement, and assurance and entertainment impacted social engagement favourably. For both CONTROL (human concierge) and SERVBOT (social robot concierge), emotional and social engagement had a significant influence on intentions to use. This study is the first to propose the SERVBOT model to measure social robots’ service quality. The model provides a theoretical underpinning on the key service quality dimensions of a social robot and gives scholars and managers a method to track the service quality of a social robot. The study also extends the literature by exploring the key factors that influence the use of social robots (i.e., emotional and social engagement).
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Yang, Hsiao-Peng, and 楊小芃. "Applying the Kano Model to Explore the Critical Quality Attributes of Smart Customer Service Robot." Thesis, 2017. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/r9n6un.
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碩士<br>國立臺灣科技大學<br>管理學院MBA<br>105<br>Technology effect of the financial industry, the old bank of customer service areas has begun to gradually technology, and Fintech's upsurge makes financial services more efficient. As a result of the financial industry and the combination of the technology industry, various financial industries have launched intelligent customer service; online banking and other services, making the financial services have been a different appearance in the past. The new service is attracting customers, but sometimes the service is not they needs, so, want to meet customer expectations, or need to meet customer service quality required to achieve good customer satisfaction. Therefore, this study hopes to have a clear understanding of the quality of the elements should be improved to enhance the high customer satisfaction and eliminate customer dissatisfaction, so that the financial industry in the introduction of intelligent customer service robot, the resources can be the most efficient distribution The
According to Kano’s model, quality elements can be classified into five categories, attractive quality, one-dimensional quality, must-be quality, indifferent quality and reverse quality. The results of this study show as 17 quality factors. There are 4 items in One-dimension quality; the others are the two-dimensional quality elements. 6 items are classified as attractive quality, 4 items are classified as must-be quality, 2 indifferent quality. The Finally, this study will be the quality improvement indicators to four quadrant diagrams to further explain the meaning of each element in the quadrant. This study can be more clearly understand the quality of the elements should be improved to enhance the high customer satisfaction and eliminate customer dissatisfaction, so that the introduction of the financial industry Intelligent customer service robot, the resources can be the most efficient distribution.
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Li, Yi-Nan, and 酈屹男. "The Role and Impact of Customer Participation in Service Process: A Comparison between Human Being and Robot Servant." Thesis, 2017. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/dn5trj.
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碩士<br>輔仁大學<br>企業管理學系管理學碩士班<br>105<br>The study of robotics has been through a great evolution since the very first time that the concept of robot was came up with. With the beginning of Industry 4.0, an increasing number of robots appear in our daily lives, which are also frequently used by many companies and merchants as service personal. During the service process of these smart robots, the degree of customer trust can be influenced by the degree of customer participation. Customer trust is one of the most important things during the whole service process, which allows the service personal to provide a better service and also allows the customer to fully enjoy the service with high quality and efficiency.
The main purpose of this research is to discuss and compare the influence on customer trust, affect, repurchase intention, word-of-mouth effect caused by different services provided by human service personal and robot service personal under different degree of customer participation. This research uses Situational Simulation with a 2*2 experimental design, and applied to two situations with high and low degree of customer participation. In both of the two situations, there will be two different service types provided by human service personal and robot service personal. 159 valid samples were collected and analyzed. The analysis results indicate that the majority of customers have higher degree of customer trust in robot service personal than in human service personal. In the while, the degree of customer participation also has certain adjustment impact on the results. When the degree of customer participation is relatively higher, customers show more trust in the service personal, which brings higher repurchase intention and reputation effect consequently.
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Chou, Szu-Jung, and 周思蓉. "THE EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND AUTONOMY OF HOTEL SERVICE ROBOTS ON CUSTOMER USAGE INTENTION." Thesis, 2018. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/62w48m.
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碩士<br>大同大學<br>事業經營學系(所)<br>106<br>With the advancement of computer technology and the continuous development of artificial intelligence, robotics has entered in a new era. Social platform, healthcare, hotels, transport, catering or a variety of other industries begin to offer consumers robot service to use. In recent years, in order to enhance the interaction between users and robots, many companies have developed robots with anthropomorphic appearance to reduce the distance between humans and robots. In addition, due to the trend of automation development and manufacturers in order to make the industrial production efficiency more competitive, they developed a lot of automated machines and highly autonomous robots, therefore, it is very important to robot industry today to design an anthropomorphic appearance and the autonomy of the ability of the robots.
With the rapid development of AI robot technology, topics related to anthropomorphic appearance and the autonomy of the ability of the robot have also been studied. However, these researches focus on anthropomorphic appearance of the robot and the autonomy of the ability of the robot which influence perceived threat and the negative attitude toward robots (Jakub Złotowski, Kumar Yogeeswaran and Christoph Bartneck, 2017; Yogeeswaran, Złotowski, Livingstone, Bartneck, Sumioka, and Ishiguro, 2016; Ferrari, Paladino and Jetten, 2016). There were few articles on usage intention of the public to use anthropomorphic appearance of the robot and the autonomy of the ability of the robot. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of anthropomorphic appearance of the robot and the autonomy of the ability of the robot on perceived threat, the negative attitude toward robots and usage intention. This study uses hotel service robots as an example and takes public who is over fifteen years old with the experience of staying in the hotel before as respondents for empirical research. This study utilized convenience sampling to gather data by on-line questionnaires. A total of 427 questionnaires were recovered, after deleting the invalid questionnaires such as has no experience of staying in the hotel before and incomplete or repeat checking, there are 360 valid questionnaires. The effective questionnaire response rate is 84.3%. The empirical data were analyzed and hypotheses were verified by using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0 software. The result shows that anthropomorphic appearance of the robot and the autonomy of the ability of the robot have a significant effect on perceived threat and the negative attitude toward robots and perceived threat also has a positive significant effect on the negative attitude toward robots, and the negative attitude toward robots has a negative significant effect on usage intention. Finally, this study will report the research contribution and management implications, as well as research limitations and suggestions for future research.
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Lee, Wen-Hsuan, and 李玟萱. "The Study Of Relationship Among Word-Of-Mouth, Customer Value And Purchase Intention:The Speciality Shop Of Kinmen Root Of Moghania." Thesis, 2015. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ebz529.
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碩士<br>國立金門大學<br>觀光管理學系<br>103<br>Kinmen tourism industry developed rapidly during the last years, The majority of tourist will necessarily going to specialty shop that buy some specialty product and souvenir before they leaving . In those manager of specialty industry , long leaf wurrus industry's market is the only one to display originality in the commercial strategy.
The questionnaires were distributed from May 25 to June 15 in 2015. The study has issued 400 questionnaires in total, 400 returned, 390 are valid, and the effective response rate is 97.5％.
The data collected were analyzed by SPSS 16.0 and AMOS 16.0, including descriptive analysis, reliability and validity analysis, T-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s product-moment correlation and structural equation modeling (SEM).
The findings were summarized as follows The majority of respondents are female, married, 21-30 years old, at university or college level, employee from service industries, have average monthly salary around TWD$ 20,001-30,000, and lived in North of Taiwan, most of people come to kinmen 3 times, and visit WUJI specialty shop. As a result, customers will be enhancing comprehensive values about the shop of the root of moghania after the lecturer introduction. Besides the Word-of-mouth has a significant positive impact on customer values. When the customer values are raised, the customer shopping ability will increased. The customer value has a significant positive impact on purchase intention. Furthermore Word-of-mouth Lecturer the wishes of customers to purchase are not direct effect, Probably because of this word-of-mouth research is for the operator costumers are more preparedness of psychological, Word-of-mouth isn’t significant positive impact on purchase intention. At last word-of-mouth impulsive traits have significant interference but it isn’t important interference with customer values, So Impulsive trait is the partial effect between word-of-mouth and purchase intention.
The Result of this study provide the relevant units of the recommendations, the lecturer should be increase of Word-of-mouth and customers interaction, And reduce the discounet price.
Key words: word-of-mouth, customer value, purchase intention, Impulsive trait.
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Hu, Wan-Chiao, and 胡宛喬. "Studies on the chemical constituents of the fruit of Cnidium monnieri (L.) Cusson and the root of Paeonia lactiflora Pall." Thesis, 2006. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/98580907485045794839.
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碩士<br>國立臺灣大學<br>化學研究所<br>94<br>Cnidium monnier is a herb annual. Cnidium monnieri (L.) Cusson is dried ripe fruits of Cnidium monnieri has been used in classical traditional Chinese medicine for several diseases. They distributes over Taiwan and mainland China.
The methanol extract from the Cnidium monnieri (L.) Cusson was concentrated to give residue which was partitioned between ethyl acetate and water. The ethyl acetate layer was separated by column chromatography on silica gel, preparative thin layer chromatography and HPLC to afford forty-four compounds. Of these compounds, eight compounds are new and two compound are isolated for the first time from natural sources. The total isolated included thirty-four courmarins, eight chromones, and two aromatic compounds.
Paeonia lactiflora Pall. is a herb pereannial. Its dried roots has several medicinal applications in classical traditional Chinese medicine for supplies blood, controls pain, alleviates sudden onset of disease, subdues hyperactive liver, controls excessive sweating. They distributes over Taiwan and mainland China.
The methanol extract from the roots of Paeonia lactiflora Pall. was concentrated to give residue which was partitioned between ethyl acetate and water. The ethyl acetate layer was separated by column chromatography on silica gel, preparative thin layer chromatography, and HPLC to afford thirteen compounds. One of these compounds is isolated for the first time from natural sources. The total isolated included eight aromatic compounds, one steroid, one triterpenoid, one flavonoid, and two others were evaluated with telomerase inhibition.
The structure of known compounds were elucidated by comparison of their spectral data with related literature values. The structure of new compounds were identified by spectroscopic methods including 1D and 2D NMR.