Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

Management

Objectives: The objectives of the study are to identify the service quality factors or dimensions and variables which influence customers’ behavioral intention of the selected public sector banks in Tamil Nadu. To develop and suggest an integrated structural measurement model by using the models of Service Quality and Behavioral Intention and to suggest service strategies for the enhancement of service quality of the bank for improving favorable behavioral intentions of banking customers. Methods/Analysis: The target population was of customers who indulge in personal banking at public banks in Chennai metro. The researcher selected X-Bank-(Disguised Name-Nationalized bank), based on the highest number of complaints registered with the banking ombudsman, as per scheme report 2014-2015 of RBI. Among the cities with complaints registered in India, Chennai city stood at the first place in having the highest percentage of complaints. Therefore, Chennai city was chosen as the area of the study. The sampling procedure used for the pilot study was, proportionate systematic random sampling. From each Public Bank of Chennai, around 250 customers were randomly selected using ‘personal contact and questionnaires were distributed to the customers of respective bank branches and they were asked to give their perception about level of service quality delivered by these banks. The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling Technique. Findings: In recent years, the banking industry is going through big changes due to increasing flows of funds and with entry of new players and products and excessive use of technology has enabled banks to fulfill commitments, provide multiple delivery channels and resolve customer responses faster. It has become order of the day to provide best possible products and services and thereby ensure satisfaction and loyalty. In order to retain customers, banks have become more customer-centric. The success of this model depends on how well banks understand customers’ behavioral intentions. This can be achieved by improving service quality and thereby customer loyalty. This study is an attempt towards developing an integrated structural equation model by studying the ‘direct impact of service quality on behavioral responses of banking customers’ in public sector bank. The model attained the model fit and highlighted the significant service quality variables which impact the behavioral intentions of consumers. Novelty/Improvement: There is further scope for research for this study. It can be on improving the model fit by taking more number of banks either in Chennai from each banking sector or by replicating the proposed model with more number of banks in different districts of Tamil Nadu, or across India. It can also be done with different service industry. © Research India Publications.

World University root node

VIT Business School

Chennai Campus

International Journal of Applied Engineering Research

Assessing the effect of service quality dimensions on bank customers behavioural responses: A structural equation model

In recent times, because of climate change and other negative consequences of environmental impact of manufacturing activities, environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM) programme has emerged as one of the most important aspects and a proactive approach for improving sustainable performance of products and processes in majority of the manufacturing organizations requiring a total approach capable of addressing multiple dimensions of environmental management. Several indicators and methods for ECM have already been proposed by different researchers and practitioners from all over the world during the last few decades. Hence, a review of those indicators and methods may be considered a prime necessity so that the manufacturing organizations may easily select the appropriate methods to improve and sustain their environmental performance. In this paper, the application potential of several indicators and methods for ECM has been classified and the methods have been critically appraised highlighting their merits and limitations. Thereafter, a comprehensive, integrated and holistic generic research framework is proposed with different analysis and modelling techniques. The inherent characteristic features and the selection norms of these techniques are mentioned. Four different research issues are also addressed in the conclusions section. This paper will help the manufacturing organizations to develop their environmental management system (EMS).

International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research

Indicators and methods for environmentally conscious manufacturing programmes: A review and reflections

Environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM) has become an important strategy and proactive approach for the iron and steel sector of India to produce environment friendly and to reduce manufacturing cost. There are several environmentally conscious manufacturing indicators to evaluate ECM programs. Among those indicators, energy consumption and greenhouse (GHG) emission may be considered critical environmentally conscious manufacturing indicators (CECMI) for Indian iron and steel sector. This paper focuses on forecasting energy consumption and GHG emission for a pig iron manufacturing organization of India because the managers are interested to know the current and future trends of these indicators for better environmental policy. For forecasting purpose, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is applied to reveal that ARIMA (1,0,0) × (0,1,1) is the best fitted model for energy consumption. Regarding GHG emission, ARIMA (0,1,4) × (0,1,1) is the best fitted model. In both cases, the forecasts resemble those of the seasonal random trend model, however they appear smoother because the seasonal pattern and the trend are efficiently averaged for energy consumption and as well as GHG emission. Selection of the correct ARIMA models for these indicators will help in accurate forecasting in order to achieve better environmental management practice. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

Energy

Application of ARIMA for forecasting energy consumption and GHG emission: A case study of an Indian pig iron manufacturing organization

The researcher has reviewed the literature to become familiar with existing published work software testing practices and quality management approach in IT industry. These efforts allowed the researcher to ensure that her research has depth and better understanding of the topic and identify gaps in the existing process and practices, and bring a integrated and a simple SOP to be implemented in the SME 's. This literature review will identify previous research that has been done on Software testing. And will bring out in-depth understanding of the previous research and findings. The literature survey brings our the gaps in quality implementation practices and the difficulties faced by SME.s for certifications on quality due to high cost and tedious implementation processes, no certification leads to loss in sales, loss of export orders and no trust b the customer. During the course of this research it has been established that there are a number of different metrics for software test planning and test design processes. There are many attributes in multiple categories for software test planning and test design processes for each of these attributes, different existing measurements that has been studied during the course of research suggests that there is a need for consolidation of these measurements. Therefore in this thesis the researcher will present the consolidation of measurements that is intended to provide an opportunity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) to consider adoption of a single process to software testing. This thesis aims to bring out current software testing metrics and their benefits after a comparative analysis. © International Science Press.

International Journal of Control Theory and Applications

Review of literature on Software Testing Practices and Quality Management approach in Software Industry

Organised food and grocery retail consumers in India in the recent days are more vocal on the quality of the products/services they buy from the market. For them, the physical environments of retail stores such as lighting, air-conditioning, store layout, parking facility, shelf display, aisle placement etc., contributes more towards the store's personality or image. The current study focuses on the consumer preference of store image attributes in organised food and grocery super markets in Coimbatore, a tier-II city in Tamil Nadu, India. The study aims to measure the existing gap between the expectation of customers and the perception of the retailers towards the retail store attributes in Coimbatore city, using 'independent samples t' test. The findings of the analysis sends sound signals from the customers to the organised food and grocery retailers, about the major store image attributes on which they have to concentrate to attract more customers to their organised food and grocery store. © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Computer Science

School of Computer Science and Engineering

International Journal of Business Excellence

Store attribute(s) preference of customers towards organised food and grocery retail outlets - a gap analysis

It has been observed that the retention of a professional and qualified staff has become a challenge in the education industries as the turnover rate has been significantly increased in recent years. This is due to the drastic changes in the work environment that have caused an impact on the employees’ perception of the chosen career. The loss of knowledge, talent and skill of an employee is a potential threat to an organization in an academic field. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the pull factors and academicians turnover; the effect of career anchor and to determine the dominant career anchor possessed by academicians in the Higher Learning Institutions. The population sample was drawn among the employees of the Higher Learning Institutions to identify the independent factors within organizations for this study. Moderated regression analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed to detect the main effects and interaction effects of pull factors and moderator (Edgar's career anchors) on turnover of employees. The empirical results of the study are discussed in detail. It is hoped that the present study will bring an insight to the Higher Education Institutions and the Ministry of Higher Education in addressing the turnover issue and ensuring a fit between the jobs and career anchors. Recommendations have been discussed and proposed for future use to any research in this field of academic. © 2016, International Academy of Business and Economics. All rights reserved.

Journal of International Business and Economics

Pull factors, career anchor and turnover of academicians in Malaysian higher education

Background: Cymothoa frontalis Milne Edward, 1840 is a very poorly described cymothoid, notwithstanding the previous redescription of the female. Pertinently, to date, the host of C. frontalis has not been identified with adequate precision. Most of the descriptions of cymothoids carried out hitherto were based primarily on females, but practically ignoring other life cycle stages. The present paper redescribes the female and describes other life cycle stages of the species C. frontalis to get better precision in their identification. Results: The female phase of C. frontalis is redescribed according to type specimens extant in the NMNH, Paris, and also by the data obtained from live specimens collected during the present study. The general morphology and appendages of various life cycle stages of the species are described. Among 80 fish species from 35 families examined, C. frontalis was recovered only from Strongylura strongylura signifying its oligoxenous host specificity, the prevalence and intensity being 68.65% and 1.9, respectively. Each host fish in more than 85% of the population was infested with a pair of C. frontalis, in three combinations, predominantly with male-female pair (70.9%). C. frontalis exhibited strict site specificity attaching to the buccal cavity of the host fish. The study has also identified three major phases (marsupial, free living and infective) in the life cycle of C. frontalis. The zygotic-staged marsupiumites were developed through five sequential ontogenetic stages. The manca released from the marsupium become infective after a brief period of free swimming life. During the infective phase, C. frontalis completes remaining life cycle stages with successive moulting. Further, six successive stages of the ovigerous females have also been identified. Conclusions: The present redescription of the female and the description of transitional, male, juvenile and larvae of C. frontalis facilitate precise identification of the species at any stage of the life cycle. Further, the strict host and site specificities of the parasite, as borne out from the present study, and its high degree of prevalence in the host make C. frontalis as an ideal model organism to study the strategies to be adopted for the management of parasites infesting edible fishes. © 2015 Thamban et al.

Department of Integrative Biology

School of Bio Sciences and Technology

Vellore Campus

Fulltext

Zoological Studies

Cymothoa frontalis, a cymothoid isopod parasitizing the belonid fish Strongylura strongylura from the Malabar Coast (Kerala, India): redescription, description, prevalence and life cycle

The current paper presents a case study of an Indian pig iron manufacturing organisation to model the CO emission from the blast furnace by applying Six Sigma. The problem for the current organisation is the variation of CO from blast furnace which often exceeds the prescribed limit. Hence, the main objective of the paper is to identify significant process parameters responsible for CO emission by applying define-measure-Analyseimprove-control (DMAIC) methodology of Six Sigma because of its structured approach to problem solving. However, this paper also shows a new technique by using artificial neural network (ANN) as a tool in Six Sigma. Results suggest that coke consumption is the most important parameter to influence CO emission from the perspective of cost. Frequent high concentration of CO implies that heat is leaving the furnace in the form of coke consumption, which needs to be improved using best available technologies (BAT). After implementing BAT, the process capability improves from 0.80 to 1.18, resulting in satisfactory reduction of CO concentration and energy consumption. Application of Six Sigma may help the organisation to save around Rs. 5 crore (50 million) annually. © Copyright 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage

Application of ANN in Six Sigma for CO modeling and energy efficiency of blast furnace: A case study of an Indian pig iron manufacturing organisation

India is relatively new in adopting social media and this paper try to identify the factors influencing customer engagement in Facebook brand pages. The main source of data used in this article is from Facebook’s insight data. The 134 selected Facebook Brand Pages were monitored regarding both the brand’s activity (posts) as well as the consumers’ interactions with the brand’s activity (likes, comments, etc.). The Fanpage Karma, a social-media monitoring tool was used to collect the data. A conceptual framework is provided that helps to understand the factors influencing the consumer engagement in Facebook brand pages. This paper proposes an empirical model based on Indian Facebook brand pages, which can help in increasing the brand engagement in Facebook brand pages. © 2015, Canadian Center of Science and Education. All rights reserved.

VIT Unitversity

Asian Social Science

Customer Engagement Factors in Facebook Brand Pages

In the competitive and globalized scenario, organizations are interested in enhancing employee–organization relationship. Perceived organizational support is one way to understand employee–organization relationship. This study examines the impact of various work-related experiences of healthcare professionals on perceived organizational support. The work experience comprises employees’ experience with i) formal support through human resource practices and facility in the workplace and ii) informal social support from supervisors and coworkers in the workplace. A survey is conducted among healthcare professionals including medical officers and staff nurses working in primary health centers in the state of Tamil Nadu. The results of the study proved the positive impact of human resource practices (such as pay and rewards, and job autonomy), social support (such as supervisor support and coworker support), and health facility on perceived organizational support. The career growth opportunities showed a negative impact on perceived organizational support. The supervisor support and coworker support showed higher influence on perceived organizational support than human resource practices and health facility. The study has contributed to the literature on human resource practices and perceived organizational support. The results of the study have provided inputs on how to enhance perceived organizational support of healthcare professionals and about healthcare professionals’ perception of human resource practices that could be incorporated while making policies related to public health. © 2013, Springer-Verlag London.