Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

For Pakistani banks to remain competitive in this 21st century, they have to adopt and excel in practices that have brought significant competitive advantages to firms worldwide. Among these practices, lean management has played a significant role. There is a need to develop a systematic approach to access up to what extent firms are adopting lean practices. The objective of this research is to measure the level of adoptions of lean practices in banking sector in Pakistan. Face to face structured interviews were conducted and our findings suggest that banks are not implementing lean practices in true spirit. To implement lean practices holistically, bank employees should understand the philosophy of lean.

A "signomial" is a mathematical function, contains one or more independent variables. Richard J. Duffin and Elmor L. Peterson introduced the term "signomial". Signomial geometric programming (SGP) optimization technique often provides a much better mathematical result of real-world nonlinear optimization problems. In this research paper, we have proposed unconstrained and constrained signomial geometric programming (SGP) problem with positive or negative integral degree of difficulty. Here a modified form of signomial geometric programming (MSGP) has been developed and some theorems have been derived. Finally, these are illustrated by proper examples and applications.

In order to do a volatility analysis, since the exchange rate is higher than the average risk, the higher the average rate of return, the higher the average growth rate of the year. applied the method of data analysis. An attempt to volatility analysis can be made in one year, in the middle of the end of 2016.

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the nature and amplitude of Strategic Analysis Tools (SAT) application in SMEs located in emerging countries, specifically the North Area of Buenos Aires, Argentina (NABAA), where there are no formal studies on the subject. It is intended to understand their contribution to strategic options formulation and implementation. A survey to SMEs’ owners/executives /managers in NABAA and interviews with specialists were applied, intending to analyze the use of these tools to facilitate the creation of strategic options, their support in assessing a competitive position and their promotion of superior performance. The results of this investigation developed that SAT and their related KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) should be considered in SMEs in order to improve strategy formulation and find better ways to implement it. Their systematization –not leaving aside intuition- become a key issue as documenting this process appears vital when analyzing strategic options and performing better interrelations among different elements that may be identified. An improvement in strategic analysis may help also to have a better cohesion of company resources and achieve the established objectives. Unconsciousness, and cultural biases and barriers may explain their low usage rates. The final objective is to set aside from competition and build unattainable competitive advantages.This is a qualitative investigation, and the research design is not experimental and transversal.Keywords: Strategic Analysis Tools (SAT); Formulation; SME; Competitiveness; Value.

For any business, inventory system takes a monumental part. Keep this aspect in mind, we formulate multi-objective displayed EPQ model consider with non-instantaneous deteriorating things where production depends on demand and variable demand pattern depends on display self-space, selling price and frequency of advertisement of the item. The customers are more attracted to buy an item by observing self-space, selling price and advertisement. Imperfect materials are now and again come back to providers for a discount or credit. Here price discount is available for deteriorated and defective items. Holding cost varies with time where shortages are allowed and fully backlogged. Fuzzy environment touches the reality instead of the crisp environment. So, we assumed the cost components as Triangular Fuzzy Numbers and Nearest Interval Approximation Method is used to defuzzify the model. Finally, numerical examples as well as  sketches are given to illustrate the model.

A series of public policies are being adopted worldwide to seek greater participation of renewable energy sources in the energy matrix. Brazil is a country that has a predominantly renewable energy source, with hydroelectric energy being responsible for the largest portion, but with enormous potential to be exploited for solar energy. The objective of this study was to carry out an analysis of the economic viability of a photovoltaic matrix in the distributed microgeneration model from the residential consumer perspective. Through the Monte Carlo simulation, 10.000 iterations were performed and the NPV was calculated in each of them, then counted to recover the corresponding output probability distribution and verified the NPV probability to be greater than zero. The developed method has proved to be a reliable tool to support decision making and can be applied to several scenarios. The scenario adopted for the design of the photovoltaic system presented a 95.2% probability of returning with an NPV above zero and this makes it economically feasible. The main contribution of this paper is the replicability of the methodology used for other economic analysis studies.

There are major concerns regarding the previous research that can be said as having poor measurements, lack of theoretical grounding, and concern heavily on investment justifies. Some are also considered as having weak survey instruments, inappropriate data collection approaches, and lack of agreement on the dependent variables measurement that resulted in its incompatibility. Several related issues pertaining to high rates of systems’ failure that justify the heavy investment costs and affect the systems’ success of measurement. This matter had raised a high concern, especially for the researchers, practitioners, organization managers and systems administrators. Thus, the successful measurement of any systems is vital. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework and a high-quality validated instrument based on the literature review and experts’ validation. Subsequently, it can be used in the future studies to efficiently assist in the systems’ success measurement. The statistical test of 344 users with the smart PLS for the instrument shows an excellent result.

This paper intends to describe the public health policies and labor conditions of road haulage drivers. In order to give a brief overview of these policies, it describes some research results, some indicators pointing to a loss of quality of life of these workers by virtue of their habits, their physical conditions and labor laws. Finally, the path indicates some points traced by national policies that seek to preserve the quality of life of these workers. The method used was literature review found in scientific bases, pointing data that guide the discussions. Due to the necessity of road transport in Brazil, truck drivers suffer poor working conditions to meet the high demand for their services. Seeing that the road haulage driver is directly involved in the delivery and flow of Brazil's logistical process of deliveries from the raw materials to the final product to the consumer, public policies are urgently needed to adjust and improve all the working and physical conditions to this class of workers in accordance with law 13.103/2015. High rates of traffic accidents with truck drivers were recorded, however, conditions for good sleep do not favour truck drivers, destabilising their physical condition, and classifying these professionals as sedentary because of negative health habits.

Currently the high rate of systems fails, and challenges faces the researchers results in relegate systems success measure to the back seat. With the big debate among the researcher about what is the best measure of systems success this study come out with new perspective. Current study makes united between the dependent variables that measures systems success, instead of depending on one variable researcher should depends on three variables together. With 344 users from three different universities Ibrahim’s triangle model has been approved as a valid success measure. All the hypothesis was accepted and there is a strong positive relationship between the triangle factors.

Every player in the market has a greater need to know about the smallest change in the market. Therefore, the ability to see what is ahead is a valuable advantage. The purpose of this research is to make an attempt to understand the behavioral patterns and try to find a new hybrid forecasting approach based on ARIMA-ANN for estimating styrene price. The time series analysis and forecasting is an essential tool which could be widely useful for finding the significant characteristics for making future decisions. In this study ARIMA, ANN and Hybrid ARIMA-ANN models were applied to evaluate the previous behavior of a time series data, in order to make interpretations about its future behavior for styrene price. Experimental results with real data sets show that the combined model can be most suitable to improve forecasting accurateness rather than traditional time series forecasting methodologies. As a subset of the literature, the small number of studies have been done to realize the new forecasting methods for forecasting styrene price.