In this paper, we study a discrete-time first-comefirst-served queueing system with a single server and two types (classes) of customers, where the (average) service time of a customer is longer if its type differs from the type of the preceding customer. As opposed to traditional literature, the different types of customers do not occur randomly and independently in the arrival stream: we incl...

~ S T R K T As TIE SER~TCESOF THF United Technologies Corporation Information Network have changed from a traditional library system to a virtual system of World Wide M'eb sites, a document delivery unit, telephone and e-mail reference, and desktop technical support, the onus of choice in seeking information has shifted onto the consumer. The Information Network must educate and empower its cus...

Efficient and effective response to the requirements of customers is a major performance indicator. Failure to satisfy customer requirements implies operational weaknesses in a company. These weaknesses will damage both the rights of customers and the reputation of the company. The traditional method of handling customer requirement for a machine tool manufacturer was dominated by manual proces...

The application of food and beverage information system to traditional farms has become a current trend. In addition to providing visitors with different featured itineraries and services, it also helps develop the so-called featured farms. However, the existing studies on F&B information system of farms mainly focused on the establishment of system, and seldom discussed the satisfaction with u...

In a competitive electricity market traditional demand side management options offering customers curtailable service at reduced rates are replaced by voluntary customer responses to electricity spot prices. In this new environment, customers wishing to ensure a fixed electricity price while taking advantage of their flexibility to curtail loads can do so by purchasing a forward electricity con...

Motivated by overcoming the existing utility-based choice modeling approaches, we present a novel conceptual framework of multidimensional network analysis (MNA) for modeling customer preferences in supporting design decisions. In the proposed multidimensional customer–product network (MCPN), customer–product interactions are viewed as a socio-technical system where separate entities of ‘custom...

This paper employs Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology to translate customer needs and requirements into the quality characteristics to improve quality for an existing product to develop a new consumer product. The traditional quality function deployment technique consists of six steps. The purpose of the first step is to measure the voice of the customer that reveals his/her needs an...

In electronic commerce web sites, recommender systems are popularly being employed to help customers in selecting suitable products to meet their personal needs. These systems learn about user preferences over time and automatically suggest products that fit the learned model of user preferences. Traditionally, recommendations are provided to customers depending on purchase probability and cust...

Recommender systems have become extremely common in recent years. Companies, such as Amazon or eBay, developed a large number products to meet different needs of customers. A increasing number of options are available to customers in the era of E-commerce. Thus, in this new level of customization, in order to find what they really need, customers must process a large amount of information provi...