Rafikul Islam

Employee Performance Evaluation by the AHP: A Case Study

Employee performance evaluation is designed to assess each individual’s contribution to the organization. The performance of individuals against organizational goals determines whether the organization meets its goals. The basic objectives of performance evaluations are two-fold: firstly to reward employees for meeting organizational objectives and secondly to identify which objectives are not met and to develop action plans to ensure they are achieved in future. The present paper uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate employees performances based upon the criteria: quantity/quality of the work, planning/organization, initiative/commitment, teamwork/cooperation, communication and external factors. Each of these criteria has been divided into 3 subcriteria. Two hundred and ninety-four employees of Inter System Maintenance Services Sdn. Bhd. are evaluated on these subcriteria. Overall ranking of the employees has been obtained using the absolute measurement procedure of AHP.

Effects of Lean Six Sigma application in healthcare services: a literature review.

Abstract The healthcare organization is the place where defects and mistakes cannot be tolerated. A simple mistake can cost a human life so defects or mistakes must be eliminated in healthcare service processes. A Lean Six Sigma (LSS) approach is the best option in a healthcare environment for dealing with a critical patient. The LSS methodology optimizes the average reduction of a desired process. The expected results can be reductions in several aspects of healthcare such as patient waiting time in emergency departments, lost charges for billing in patient financial services, delinquent medical records, diagnostic result turnaround times, accounts receivable days, patients’ length of stay, or medication errors. This paper mainly discusses the effects of the LSS approach in different hospitals around the world according to the literature review. This review also discusses the relationship between LSS as well as their impacts on healthcare services based on literature review.

Management decision-making by the analytic hierarchy process: a proposed modification for large-scale problems

Frequently, management decision making problems involve multiple criteria/objectives/attributes. Over the years, many quantitative methods have been developed to facilitate making rational decisions involving multiple criteria. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is, in general, regarded as one of the most successful techniques to solve decision making problems involving multiple criteria. In AHP, the decision maker starts by constructing the overall hierarchy of the decision problem. The hierarchy consists of criteria, subcriteria and alternatives of the decision making problem. A number of pairwise comparison matrices are formed in order to derive weights of the criteria and the local weights of the alternatives. Subsequently, the principle of hierarchical composition is used to determine the global weights of the alternatives. The alternative with the highest global weight is selected as the best alternative. The drawback of the traditional AHP is that it requires a large number of pairwaise comparisons, especially in the presence of a large number of criteria. The present empirical study attempts to investigate the possibility of eliminating insignificant criteria in order to reduce AHP computational time. Using the Expert Choice software, findings confirm that criteria that carry comparatively lesser weights can be excluded from the hierarchy and thereby the total time required for making the pairwise comparisons can be reduced drastically. To solve large-scale enterprise multi-criteria decision making problems (that involve large number of criteria) by AHP, it is proposed that at the very outset, decision makers can apply nominal group technique to identify the insignificant criteria. These criteria can be dropped from subsequent analysis and this exclusion will not affect the final decision significantly. This proposed methodology is expected to enhance the applicability of AHP in solving various kinds of larger sized multi-criteria decision making problems in any enterprise.

Application of Quality Function Deployment in redesigning website: a case study on TV3

Internet technology has been used by most of the organizations in the world today. One of the primary vehicles of information gathering and dissemination in today’s world is organizational website. This research evaluates the performance of the present TV3 (a popular private television station in Malaysia) website. By means of an on-line survey and a few focus group discussions, it also identifies the website viewer requirements and their corresponding importance level. Subsequently, the technical requirements are identified that can fulfill the viewer requirements. A House of Quality (HOQ) is built to find the relationship between the viewer and technical requirements. The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) exercise provides the prioritized technical requirements, which is expected to guide the TV3 website development and maintenance team in its future website redesigning project. The findings of the research are also expected to provide some insight in other organizations in similar need.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process in the Transportation Sector

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a well-known multi-criteria decision making method that has been applied to solve problems in diverse areas. The present paper deals with applications of the AHP in the transportation sector. We describe three applications of the AHP namely, (1) A governmental agency with jurisdiction over a certain area must decide on whether to build or not to build a bridge or a tunnel across a river presently served by a privately owned ferry. The factors or control criteria which affect both the benefits and costs of crossing a river are given in two hierarchies that fall into three categories: economic, social, and environmental. The decision is made in terms of the ratios of the priorities of the alternatives from the benefits hierarchy to those from the costs hierarchy although the AHP also has a second way to synthesize benefits and costs involving strategic criteria not used in this example. (2) In planning alternative strategies for the future of the Sudan’s transport system, the method of anticipatory scenario construction was used. The construction of the composite scenario was based on the use of the method of priorities to compare the individual scenarios as to their feasibility and desirability to the various forces which will shape changes in Sudanese society. (3) Here we apply the dependence with a feedback system in making a decision to buy a car made by an American, a European, or a Japanese company on the basis of three criteria: cost, repair, and durability.

MBNQA criteria in education: assigning weights from a Malaysian perspective and proposition for an alternative evaluation scheme

In order to improve quality and productivity among American companies, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was launched by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Department of Commerce of US government in 1987. Over the years, the award has been proved to be effective in improving companies’ market share, customer satisfaction, employee morals and also profitability. MBNQA has been a ‘role model’ in developing national quality award for many other countries in the world. Furthermore, for organizational self-assessment, the criteria framework of MBNQA has been in use throughout the world. Presently, the award is offered in three categories: Business, Education, and Health-care. The present paper is concerned with MBNQA in Education. NIST has developed a comprehensive set of criteria to be fulfilled in order to be eligible to win the award. However, in the existing literature, it is not clear how the weights are assigned to the criteria and subcriteria. The present paper uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to reassign criteria weights from a Malaysian perspective. Furthermore, the paper points out the fallacy of the present evaluation scheme and proposes an alternative one based upon the absolute measurement procedure of AHP. The modified scheme is expected to enhance the fairness in evaluation of the award aspirants. The paper also shares the experiences gathered in data collection using AHP.

Building consumers' confidence in adopting e-commerce: a Malaysian case

Consumers’ confidence on the online transactions is vital for the continuous growth and development of electronic commerce. In the present study, we experimentally investigate the measures of consumers’ perceived security and privacy over online transactions as well as the perceived trust and reliability of online vendors in order to influence consumers’ overall confidence in e-commerce transactions. On the basis of responses from 163 participants, it is concluded that the major concerns in e-commerce adoption are: security and privacy over online transaction process and trust and reliability of online vendors. In order to be successful in electronic marketplace, the organisations are expected to expend their resources and exert efforts to ensure that consumers’ concerns are adequately addressed.

Do managers and employees perceive motivating factors differently in Malaysia

Employee motivation is crucial for sustainable growth of any organisation. Highly motivated employees contribute significantly to an organisation’s bottomline and its overall productivity. It is a primary task of the managers to know the motivating factors of their employees and act accordingly so that the organisation can remain competitive in the marketplace. The main objective of the present research is to investigate the difference, if any, between the perceptions of managers and employees on a pre-determined set of motivating factors. As it has been shown, though overall, they were in agreement, but they do differ on certain fundamental issues in terms of ranking of the above-mentioned set of motivating factors. Impact of the respondents’ demography on the findings, in the Malaysian context, is also highlighted. This research underscores the importance of the knowledge of employee motivating factors before developing or dealing with any motivational programme in an organisation.

Developing quality healthcare software using quality function deployment: a case study based on Sultan Qaboos University Hospital

Development of software is one of the most expensive projects undertaken in practice. Traditionally, the rate of failure in software development projects is higher compared to other kinds of projects. This is partly due to the failure in determining software users’ requirements. By using Quality Function Deployment (QFD), this research focuses on identification and prioritization of users’ requirements in the context of developing quality health-care software system for Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman. A total of 95 staff working at eight departments of SQUH were contacted and they were requested to provide their requirements in using hospital information systems. Analytic Hierarchy Process has been integrated with QFD for prioritizing those user requirements. Then, in consultation with a number of software engineers, a list consisting of 30 technical requirements was generated. These requirements are divided into seven categories and all of them are purported to satisfy the user needs. At the end of QFD exercise, continuous mirror backup from backup category, multi-level access from the security and confidentiality category, linkage to databases from application category emerge as technical requirements having higher weights. These technical requirements should receive considerable attention when designing the health-care software system for SQUH.

Identifying the gaps between customer expectations and perceptions on service quality dimensions of Islamic banks in Malaysia

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the gaps and differences between customer expectations and perceptions on service quality of Islamic banks in Malaysia based on six dimensions of service quality, namely, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles and Islamic Shari’ah compliance. Design/methodology/approach – This study surveyed 179 customers who have first-hand experience with Islamic banking services in Malaysia. The research data were analysed using reliability analysis, independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance. Findings – The results indicated that customers’ perceptions failed to meet their expectations on the service quality of Islamic banks in Malaysia. The results also indicated that those customers (respondents) aged below 30 years have higher expectations on empathy from the Islamic banking service compared to other age groups. However, there is no significant difference between customer expectations and perceptions of Islamic banking service quality based ...