This research aimed to develop and test a conceptual structural model that explores the dimensions of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and their relationships in the context of Bangladesh apparel fashion retail. Through a questionnaire survey, a total of 1126 local respondents from 14 fashion retailers were studied for this work. The questionnaire was prepared based on the previous studies and experts' panel reviewed the questionnaire to establish the content validity of this study. Using factor analysis, eight dimensions of service quality, four of satisfaction, and three of loyalty were found valid in this context. Five dimensions of service quality influencing on customer satisfaction were identified for regression analysis. The hypothesised influences from service quality on both satisfaction and loyalty were found significant, and customer satisfaction and customer loyalty were also tested significantly by structural equation modelling (SEM). The narrow comparative study across the apparel fashion sector and lacking of research in the context of Bangladesh motivates the authors to explore this area. As a result, overall findings disclose new insights for academics and decision makers.

The CO₂ emission of transportation is significantly reduced by the employment of green vehicles to the existing vehicle fleet of the organizations. This paper intends to optimize the composition of conventional and green vehicles for a logistics distribution problem operating under a carbon emission cap imposed by the government. The underlying problem involves product delivery by the vehicles starting from a single depot to geographically distributed customers. The delivery occurs within specified time windows. To solve the proposed problem, we design a hybrid metaheuristic solution based on ant colony optimization (ACO) and variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithms. Extensive computational experiments have been performed on newly generated problem instances and benchmark problem instances adopted from the literature. The proposed hybrid ACO is proven to be superior to the state-of-the-art algorithms available in the literature. We obtain 21 new best-known solutions out of 56 benchmark instances of vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). The proposed mixed fleet model obtains the best composition of conventional and green vehicles with a 6.90% reduced amount of CO₂ emissions compared to the case when the fleet consists of conventional vehicles only.

Spectacular socio-economic development has taken place all around Oman during the last four decades. As a consequence, thriving construction industries are apparent everywhere in the country and not surprisingly, they are going through some productivity problems. Therefore, in light of improving productivity, this paper focuses on exploring the major determinants of productivity, their co-relationship, and the problem categories responsible for construction delay in the context of Oman construction industry. A semi-structured questionnaire approach is chosen as a method of survey from the parties involved in construction industry, such as, owners, consultants, contractors, and foremen/workers. Twenty five major factors of productivity, which are further grouped into ten critical variables by principal components analysis, are identified to be important in this study. Lack of professionalism, fairness in financial transactions, incompetent supervisors, lack of materials, and incomplete drawing are found as top five factors of productivity. In addition, management, people, collaboration, health and safety, logistics, commitment, operational activity, authority, quality, and financial matters are reported as critical variables of productivity. Owners and consultants are determined as top problem categories for construction delay. The comparisons of top five productivity factors found in this study to several other countries' productivity factors are also shown. Overall, this study is expected to have substantial implication for policy makers and researchers in the area of construction productivity in Oman.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a management tool which is used in identifying customers' need and to provide those requirements to them with quality consciousness. This paper demonstrates how an engineering department can apply QFD to translate voices of students into technical requirements of teaching. The students' needs and requirements are identified to develop the foundation in delivering the quality services in engineering education. For QFD analysis, a survey with the students of an engineering department is structured. The developed house of quality (HOQ) illustrates the transformation process of students' requirements into instructional developments. This step-by-step application of QFD might help the management of the department to improve the teaching techniques and to deliver the quality services.

A case study design was used to understand Manitoba’s response to accessing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the first wave of the global coronavirus pandemic. By evolving early on in the pandemic to a provincially led structure dedicated to the healthcare supply chain, Manitoba was able to avoid major shortages in access to PPE. Leadership was focused on the possibilities for action and implementation (ie, dynamic, adaptive, and collaborative) rather than trying to respond within the status quo (ie, a more linear and traditional approach). As a result, few structural items other than the creation of an effective, province-wide digital network to fully visualize the healthcare supply chain are needed going forward. Manitoba’s healthcare supply chain had a number of successes during the initial wave of the global pandemic including many new processes like the local production of PPE and the establishment of new supplier relationships.