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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which service quality, perceived price and fairness and service convenience influence customer satisfaction and customer loyalty for Indian retail banking sector. It further explores the role of customer satisfaction as mediating variable between service quality dimensions, perceived price and fairness, service convenience dimensions and customer loyalty.

A cross-sectional research on 445 retail banking customers through questionnaire is conducted. Population of study is valued retail urban customers of banks in Rajasthan, India, who frequently visit bank premises for transactions, have accounts in at least two banks and have availed of at least one information technology-based services. Responses are analyzed using factor analyses and regression analyses.

Results reveal that service quality dimensions, perceived price and fairness and service convenience dimensions have positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Moreover, customer satisfaction acts as mediating variable between its antecedents and customer loyalty.

This study has taken into account a specific category of retail banking customers. Thus, it limits generalization of results to other banking population.

This study explains the importance of customer satisfaction for achieving customer loyalty for Indian retail banking sector.

The paper underlines the importance of customer satisfaction for achieving customer loyalty. Impact of SERVCON dimensions on customer loyalty is found rare in literature.

This paper aims to describe the application of several Six Sigma tools to explain the improvement changes needed in a company that manufactures concrete blocks. The paper explains the methodology and the tools of the Six Sigma system, their use in the project, the application of the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control) process for the identification and definition of the problems, the related performance variables and the results obtained.

The paper reports the research made to improve the production of concrete blocks, specifically, the application of the DMAIC process, which is part of the Six Sigma methodologies; DMAIC stands for Definition of the problem, Measurement of the performance, Analysis using specific statistical methods and tools, Improvement the factors that cause the problem and Control the processes to ensure that the problem will not occur again. Each of those steps is explained in detail in the paper, which also presents the application of other improvement techniques.

The results show the adaptability and relevance of Six Sigma for the improvement of production operations. It is clearly demonstrated that it leads to benefits such as the elimination of machine downtime, reduction of scrap from 18 to 2 per cent and the improvements made in plant layout and production facilities to increase the productivity.

In improvement projects, the differential between the initial and final conditions varies, depending on the magnitude of the problems or potential opportunities. Although this paper describes only the application of Six Sigma, the methodology has a wide potential application in most manufacturing industries.

With the Six Sigma and DMAIC tools’ application and the improvement process, the agility obtained is driving a more mechanized perspective of production operations. The customer service level was increased, through fast deliveries of complete orders. This project shows that the application of the Six Sigma methodology is feasible and produces attractive financial and operational results in this segment of the construction industry.

The companies dedicated to the production of concrete blocks commonly reproduce the systems and standards of the industry, which are commonly designed around civil engineering and technical issues. Thus, the application of improvement tools is exceptional in manufacturing environments. Although this paper is just one application of the methodology, it explains in detail the DMAIC use for companies that are committed to the development of new competencies to increase their competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to fabricate the scaffolds with different pore architectures using additive manufacturing and analyze its mechanical and biological properties for bone tissue engineering applications.

The polylactic acid (PLA)/composite filament were fabricated through single screw extrusion and scaffolds were printed with four different pore architectures, i.e. circle, square, triangle and parallelogram with fused deposition modelling. Afterwards, scaffolds were coated with hydroxyapatite (HA) using dip coating technique. Various physical and thermo-mechanical tests have been conducted to confirm the feasibility. Furthermore, the biological tests were conducted with MG63 fibroblast cell lines to investigate the biocompatibility of the developed scaffolds.

The scaffolds were successfully printed with different pore architectures. The pore size of the scaffolds was found to be nearly 1,500 µm, and porosity varied between 53% and 63%. The fabricated circular pore architecture resulted in highest average compression strength of 13.7 MPa and modulus of 525 MPa. The characterizations showed the fidelity of the work. After seven days of cell culture, it was observed that the developed composites were non-toxic and supported cellular activities. The coating of HA made the scaffolds bioactive, showing higher wettability, degradation and high cellular responses.

The research attempts highlight the development of novel biodegradable and biocompatible polymer (PLA)/bioactive ceramic (Al₂O₃) composite for additive manufacturing with application in the tissue engineering field.

This study aims to provide a systematic review about the Internet of Things (IoT) and its impacts on happiness. It intends to serve as a platform for further research as it is sparse in in-depth analysis.

This systematic review initially observed 2,501 literary articles through the ScienceDirect and WorldCat search engines before narrowing it down to 72 articles based on subject matter relevance in the abstract and keywords. Accounting for duplicates between search engines, the count was reduced to 66 articles. To finally narrow down all the literature used in this systematic review, 66 articles were given a critical readthrough. The count was finally reduced to 53 total articles used in this systematic review.

This paper necessitates the claim that IoT will likely impact many aspects of our everyday lives. Through the literature observed, it was found that IoT will have some significant and positive impacts on people's welfare and lives. The unprecedented nature of IoTs impacts on society should warrant further research moving forward.

While the literature presented in this systematic review shows that IoT can positively impact the perceived or explicit happiness of people, the amount of literature found to supplement this argument is still on the lower end. They also necessitate the need for both greater depth and variety in this field of research.

Since technology is already a pervasive element of most people’s contemporary lives, it stands to reason that the most important factors to consider will be in how we might benefit from IoT or, more notably, how IoT can enhance our levels of happiness. A significant implication is its ability to reduce the gap in happiness levels between urban and rural areas.

Currently, the literature directly tackling the quantification of IoTs perceived influence on happiness has yet to be truly discussed broadly. This systematic review serves as a starting point for further discussion in the subject matter. In addition, this paper may lead to a better understanding of the IoT technology and how we can best advance and adapt it to the benefits of the society.

Foreign and local banks in Malaysia are competing in terms of skilled staff, innovative products and services, rendering quality services and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the overall service quality and customer satisfaction of both foreign and local banks.

The data used to test the hypothesis were collected from 748 foreign and local bank customers in Malaysia. The research model was analysed using a structural equation modelling technique.

Results show that knowledge and staff competencies, as well as convenience of the bank is more significant for local bank customers while bank image and internet banking are important components for foreign bank customers. The results also reveal that foreign bank customers have higher satisfaction as compared to local bank customers.

No analysis is undertaken of any difference in the service quality dimensions between banks of different size. Further research on banking services could usefully test services quality dimensions across banks of different sizes.

The findings serve as a valuable reference for local banks understand service quality challenges they may face from foreign banks in this competitive industry. Findings suggest that, to provide high-quality services, financial institutions need to heighten customer satisfaction differentiation strategies.

The outcomes of this study enhance the knowledge on the performance of both local and foreign banks in Malaysia as well as customer satisfaction, which are invaluable to all bank managers and industry players in improving their services.