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Cheryl Pellerin's smart highways feature in Sensor Review, Vol. 12 No. 1, made interesting reading. In Australia, a new system, which monitors heavy vehicles, was recently unveiled. The system monitors the movement of heavy duty vehicles on New South Wales (NSW) roads. The basic need for this system was established by the Road & Traffic Authority (RTA) of NSW and it centres on being able to spot trucks which are speeding, stolen, unregistered or skipping rest periods in all weather conditions, day or night. This resulted in the development of a system called SAFE‐T‐CAM.

In August 1991 I had the opportunity of attending the annual general meeting of CIRP in Aix‐en‐Provence, France. CIRP is not all that well known generally. It is however a forum for the leading experts in manufacturing technology, and since its inception in 1951 it has evolved as the College of International Research in Production (CIRP). The annual general meeting of CIRP moves around the globe. The purpose of its existence is mainly to exchange and develop ideas in manufacturing technology with a view to providing a more scientific base for product and process design for manufacturing. Each year there are about 150 papers presented at the annual meeting and they form the Annals of CIRP which can be purchased or consulted by the public at large[l]. The papers selected by CIRP are generally of the highest quality, and reflect most advanced concepts in various areas of manufacturing engineering. The areas addressed by the scientific technical committees (STCs) of CIRP are: assembly, cutting, design, physical and chemical machine tools, optimization, dimensional metrology in quality assurance, and surfaces. I was invited by the STC on assembly to give an overview of the assembly research in Australia. This provided the opportunity for me to hear about the latest research on assembly. Of the 12 papers presented on assembly, including a keynote paper by Boothroyd and Alting on Design for Assembly and Disassembly, there were two which specifically dealt with the issue of quality control in electronic assembly, particularly via neural network data processing. With reference to the previous article by Pandya in Assembly Automation, Vol. 12 No. 4, the material which follows provides further insights into the neural network approach.

The place where I work in Sydney is the site of the National Measurement Laboratory (NML) of Australia. The function of the Laboratory is to develop technologies for high accuracy measurements of mass, length and time. The theme of weight measurement for this issue of Sensor Review prompted me to talk to some of the scientists involved in this area of research.

Looks at the development of a new ultrasonic meter for the gas supply industry and explaining the transit time measurement principle on which it works and the performance characteristics of the new meter. Concludes that the ultrasound gas meter could also have medical applications including anaesthetics and hospital ward monitoring. There have been limited production runs of the new gas meter and extensive trials are taking place in several countries.

The Australian gross national product (GNP) is of the order of US$300 billion per annum, which is about one‐third of that of UK, France and Italy, but a small population of 17 million gives a comparative per capita income. The metals and the engineering‐related manufacturing industry contributes about US$50 billion towards this GNP, and in export terms now the manufacturing sector has, in 1991, overtaken the rural sector (US$11.2 for manufacturing vs 11 billion for rural), although minerals exports still predominate as the major exports earner at US$22.8 billion per annum. The Australian manufactured exports have grown at an average annual rate of 14 per cent during the period 1984 to 1990, compared with OECD figures of 8 per cent for the average annual growth rate of the total market. Approximately 50 per cent of Australian manufactured exports in 1990/91 were elaborately transformed manufactures (ETMs) which are mainly differentiated goods or finished products. A key facilitator in the production of ETMs is the adoption by the Australian manufacturing industry of the advanced manufacturing technologies of CAD/CAM and Programmable Automation. The thrust towards the development of the manufacturing sector in Australia is however now unmistakable, and this will unfold new opportunities for automation and advanced manufacturing technologies in general.

The Opera House building is synonymous worldwide with Sydney, Australia. The unique shape (see photo) is actually due to the architect wanting to recreate the geometry of orange segments, not to project the image of sails on the harbour as is generally believed. However, whatever the origin of its conceptualization, the problems of maintaining such a shape remain. So, when a new development in mobile systems was recently revealed, there was an immediate interest to establish its capabilities for fixing the leaks in the Opera House roof. The new development is called “Mr Plod” (see photo). Mr Plod is really an “it” but “he” sounds better.

This study aims to examine the influence of service quality (SQ) on customer loyalty (CL) and the mediating role of customer satisfaction (CS) and customer perceived value (CPV) in health insurance products in Malaysia.

Data were conveniently collected through a self-administered questionnaire from subscribers to health insurance products and services in Malaysia. A total of 456 available questionnaires were used in the analysis. Partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling (V3.3) was used to obtain the study results.

A positive relationship is observed amongst the studied variables. In addition, CPV partially mediates the proposed relationship and also indirectly mediates the relationship between SQ and CS. Lastly, CS partially mediates the proposed relationship. Hence, all proposed direct and indirect relationships are significant and positive.

This research increases the authors’ understanding of the role of CS, SQ and CPV on CL in the health insurance industry in a developing country. The study also shows that insurance companies must establish positive relationships between insurers and customers by providing excellent SQ to maintain CS and loyalty.

This research will help managers and guide the policymakers to establish a national health financing scheme. Furthermore, these results will guide industry players on how to maintain existing and targeting customers.

This study has attempted to provide a comprehensive understanding of CL in the Malaysian health insurance industry. Considering the limited research in the Malaysian health insurance context, this study can provide theoretical contribution and a managerial basis for future studies, including implications for the managers. However, to date, research in this sector under the Malaysian context is not adequate to consider SQ, perceived values and CL factors.

This study has attempted to provide a comprehensive understanding of CL in the Malaysian health insurance industry. Considering the limited research in the Malaysian health insurance context, this study can provide theoretical contribution and a managerial basis for future studies, including implications for the managers.

From a relational maintenance perspective, this study explores the impact of being envied (benignly vs maliciously) on consumers' feelings of social anxiety and its influence on their tendencies toward inconspicuous consumption, based on the resource conservation theory and the model of “Sensitivity about Being the Target of a Threatening Upward Comparison.” (STTUC)

Four studies were conducted in this paper. Studies 1a and 1b tested the main hypothesis that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) can increase consumers' inconspicuous consumption of luxury products and luxury hotel experiences. Study 2 replicated this finding and examined the mediating role of social anxiety. Study 3 investigated the moderating effect of ideal self-congruity (low vs high).

The findings reveal that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) is associated with higher levels of inconspicuous consumption and social anxiety acts as a mediating role. Moreover, when individuals have a strong sense of ideal self-congruity, the positive impact of being maliciously envied (vs benignly) on inconspicuous consumption is further amplified, confirming the moderating role of ideal self-congruity.

This study sheds light on a novel mechanism that elucidates how different types of being envied influence consumers' inconspicuous consumption and the conditions under which this impact is heightened.