Search results

Advanced digitalization techniques combined with artificial intelligence and automated robotic systems have created “Smart” organizations resulting in a new revolution in the industrial production systems as Industry 4.0 (I4.0). The research is aimed to do a meticulous scanning of internal and external environment pertaining to I4.0 implementation in the manufacturing industry in India.

A survey was conducted among the manufacturing managers and information technology professionals about the factors affecting I4.0 application, and 20 such internal and external factors were identified. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were executed for factor analysis, and four dimensions in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) factors were determined from the variables. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methodology was then applied.

Results show that increased productivity and efficiency appeared to be the biggest strength of I4.0 while the biggest weakness is the need for specialized training and skills. The biggest opportunity is found to be increasing trust of customers in Internet transactions and employee resistance to adopting new technologies turned out to be the biggest threat.

Organizations will be able to evaluate the strengths, work upon weakness, exploit the opportunities and protect against external challenges and threats beforehand while implementing I4.0 technologies.

The four dimensions in terms of SWOT pertaining to manufacturing industry have been identified by collecting original data from the manufacturing industry, and AHP and CFA were then carried out to prioritize and verify them.

Medical tourism encourages the traveling of patients, expert healthcare professionals and promotes cross-border trade in healthcare services. The Indian medical tourism sector is facing new challenges as well as certain ethical and legal issues because of continuous market changes and patient’s requirements while at the same time advancements in current health services have also been observed. It is therefore very important to understand and address the issues of the medical tourists. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the important factors which can make India an affordable medical tourism destination.

In this paper, the factors influencing Indian medical tourism sector have been explored by conducting literature review, they are ranked according to the results of a questionnaire-based survey and further analyzed by using the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach. The mutual relationships between these factors were identified to develop an ISM model so as to find out the important factors which can make India an affordable place for medical tourism.

The results of the survey and the model show that cost of medical procedures, facilitation, and care, the infrastructure of Indian hospitals, clinical excellence and the competence of doctors and staff are the top level factors.

It is very important to address the concerns of the patients coming to a developing country like India for availing medical services. This research has evaluated the important factors which can make India an affordable medical tourism destination.

This research assesses the effects of globalization on delivery of healthcare services in India by conducting critical analysis of the medical tourism industry by collecting original data from the international patients coming to India for different types of medical procedures so that a comprehensive model can be prepared which will help the hospitals and policymakers to improve the processes related to medical tourism.

Diabetes mellitus has become a major world health problem that has unenviable impacts on health of the people including quality of life (QOL) also and in which person’s physical and psychological state, social commitments and relationships and his interaction with the environment is affected. This shows that there is an urgent need for behavior change and considerable educational strategies for proper management and rehabilitation (Reddy, 2000). This research has identified and ranked the significant factors which affect the QOL in diabetic patients in India. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, nine factors which affect the QOL in diabetic patients in India have been identified through review of the literature and evaluated by total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach, i.e. an extended version of ISM. In this approach, interpretations of the interrelationship among factors have been discussed. Therefore, TISM approach has been used to develop the model and the mutual interactions among these factors.

The results of the model and MICMAC analysis indicate that diet restriction, body pain and satisfaction with treatment are the top-level factors.

Identification of the factors that have a remarkable effect on the QOL in diabetic patients is very important so that the doctors and other healthcare professionals may handle these factors efficiently and proper rehabilitation can be provided to such patients.

This paper has used an application of the TISM approach to interpret the mutual relationship by using the tool of interpretive matrix and has developed a framework to calculate the drive and the dependence power of factors using MICMAC analysis. The issues related to QOL are extremely important, as they can strongly anticipate a person’s capability to govern his lifestyle with disease like diabetes mellitus and maintain good health in the long run. This shows the urgent requirement of an optimized model which can predict and interpret the relationships among these factors. In this research, the interrelationships among these factors have been developed and interpretations of these interactions have been given to develop a comprehensive model so that QOL of diabetic patients may be improved.

The vision of Industry 4.0 concept is to create smart factories that will change the current processes of production and manufacturing system using smart machines to produce smart and intelligent products. The main aim of this research is to explore the enablers with regard to Industry 4.0 application in manufacturing industry in India as the available literature shows that manufacturing sector is still doubtful about the implementation of Industry 4.0.

Seventeen enablers that can affect the adoption of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing industry in India have been explored through an extensive review of available literature and viewpoints of industry and academic experts. Total Interpretive Structural Modelling methodology (TISM) has been used to evaluate the interrelationships among these factors. A TISM model has been developed to extract the key enablers influencing Industry 4.0 adoption.

The result shows that Internet facility from government at reduced price, financial support and continued specialized skills training are the major enablers as they have strong driving power.

Proper understanding of these enablers will help the managers and policymakers to explore the impact of each enabler on other enablers as well as the degree of relationships among them and to take concrete steps so that Industry 4.0 can be implemented successfully in the manufacturing sector in India.

This study is pioneer in exploring the enablers Industry 4.0 which is the most advanced concept that has the capability to change the future of Indian manufacturing sector if implemented judiciously and cautiously.

Lean concept is implemented in healthcare organizations, as it deals with improvement processes so that best services may be provided to the patients and competitive advantage may be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the important factors which influence implementation of lean principles in the healthcare industry.

The factors influencing lean implementation in the healthcare industry have been determined through literature review and results of a survey where questionnaires were distributed among 325 healthcare professionals. Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling (FISM) approach has been used to analyze the interrelationships among these factors. A FISM model has been developed to extract the key factors influencing lean implementation.

Results of the survey and model show that lean leadership, professional organizational culture and teamwork and interdepartmental cooperation are the top level factors. Clarity of organizational vision, communication of goals and results, follow up and evaluations are the factors with strong driving as well as strong dependence power. Even a slight action taken on these factors will have a significant impact on other factors.

The healthcare professionals and managers can acquire information from the drive power dependence matrix so that they can thoroughly understand the relative importance, interdependencies and relationships among these factors. The model will help in determining the hierarchy of various actions and activities which may be taken by the management for managing the factors that remarkably affect the lean management in hospitals.

In this paper, only 15 variables appropriate for the Indian healthcare industry have been identified. The model developed in the present research has not been validated statistically which can be done by structural equation modeling (SEM).

Though there are various studies which depict that lean principles have been implemented successfully in various industries, there are few studies specifying the application of lean principles in healthcare sector in India. This paper is an attempt to identify various factors which are important for application of Lean concept in the healthcare sector.

Organizations have to evaluate their internal and external environments in this highly competitive world. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis is a very useful technique which analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization for taking strategic decisions and it also provides a foundation for the formulation of strategies. But the drawback of SWOT analysis is that it does not quantify the importance of individual factors affecting the organization and the individual factors are described in brief without weighing them. Because of this reason, SWOT analysis can be integrated with any multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) technique like the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), analytical hierarchy process, etc., to evaluate the best alternative among the available strategic alternatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this study, SWOT analysis is integrated with a multicriteria decision-making technique called TOPSIS to rank different strategies for Indian medical tourism in order of priority.

SO strategy (providing best facilitation and care to the medical tourists at par to developed countries) is the best strategy which matches with the four elements of S, W, O and T of SWOT matrix and 35 strategic indicators.

This paper proposes a solution based on a combined SWOT analysis and TOPSIS approach to help the organizations to evaluate and select strategies.

Creating a new technology or administering a new strategy always has some degree of resistance by employees. To minimize resistance, the author has used TOPSIS as it involves group thinking, requiring every manager of the organization to analyze and evaluate different alternatives and average measure of each parameter in final decision matrix.

Child-to-Child (C-to-C) approach is an evidence-based approach that ensures the child’s participation in bringing about positive changes in healthcare. By systematically investigating the literature, the study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach and recognize associated themes, methodologies and outcomes.

An extensive search on PubMed, ProQuest, Cochrane and Dimensions AI databases was performed for original research articles on C-to-C intervention, with no time and geographical restrictions. Following PRISMA and PICO, the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tool assessed the studies. A data tabulation technique was used to summarize these studies.

The approach shows promising results in enhancing children’s understanding of health issues and their participation in community health promotion. This, in turn, encourages the adoption of better healthcare practices and shows improved health outcomes.

Further research is required to understand the long-term impact of the approach on populations from diverse socioeconomic statuses in different study settings.

The findings will be helpful for practitioners, educators, policymakers and other stakeholders in creating more successful and effective C-to-C intervention programs to make informed decisions, achieve sustainable behavior change and improve health.

The originality of this review paper is evident in its unique focus on the C-to-C approach, which empowers children not only as recipients of health education but also as active contributors to promoting health. Further, the present research also explores the intricacies of how children learn from each other, offering new insights into effective educational practices.

Electricity savings from energy-efficient appliances (EEAs) may have a significant impact on reducing global warming. There are several barriers confronted by EEAs, which have lowered their acceptance rate. The current study aims to identify and highlight key barriers to strengthening domestic sector adoption of EEAs in developing countries.

In the current study, 13 barriers were discovered by an in-depth literature review and the judgement of experts as well. Further, integrated “interpretive structural modeling” (ISM) and “decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory” (DEMATEL) approaches are used to evaluate barriers. The ISM technique is implemented to categorize barriers into distinct hierarchy levels and “cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification” (MICMAC) analysis to divide barriers among four clusters “independent, linkage, dependent and autonomous.” Moreover, the DEMATEL methodology is applied to classify the barriers among cause and effect clusters.

The integrated ISM and DEMATEL approach suggests that the topmost influencing barriers to the acceptance of EEAs are the lack of Government policies and initiatives, lack of attractive loan financing and subsidized energy prices.

This study would help researchers, regulators, producers, policymakers and consumers to comprehend the need for additional developments and understand that the adoption of EEAs is a current need. Overall, the results of this study expedite stakeholders with the key barriers that may assist to enhance the acceptance of EEAs within the domestic sector.

An extensive literature survey showed a dearth of studies for the identification, modeling and analysis of barriers collectively. Therefore, the current work used the ISM and DEMATEL approaches to fill the gap and to provide more comprehensive knowledge on barriers related to the acceptance of EEA.

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to c-exist with humans despite many TB control programs and elimination strategies. This depicts that some barriers are not allowing achieving the desired results. The current study aims to focus on identification and ranking of such barriers to facilitate TB control programs in developing countries.

In the present study, 13 barriers that can influence success rate of TB elimination strategies have been recognized with an in-depth assessment of related literature and opinions of specialists from medical industry and academic world. The interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) techniques have been employed for the ranking of barriers.

Based on driving power of barriers, the study coined that underinvestment is a major barrier followed by poor implementation of government policies and programs, poverty and poor primary health care infrastructure.

The findings may guide healthcare service providers and researchers in analyzing the barriers and understanding the necessity of further advancements to decrease the count of already existing and incident cases.

Policy- and decision-makers may utilize the information on dependence and driving power of barriers for better planning and effective execution of TB control strategies.

Although a lot of literature is available on different barriers that are affecting success of TB strategies, the current study analyzes all the key barriers collectively for the prioritization of barriers.

The study aims to facilitate the medical tourists visiting emerging countries for various kinds of ailments by ranking the possible destinations to avail medical treatments.

A Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP) with a mixed-method approach is applied to analyze data collected from patients and substantiate it with medical tour operators in India to gain managerial insights on the choice-making patterns of the patients.

India is a preferred emerging market location due to the low cost and high medical staff quality. India offers value for money, whereas Singapore and Thailand are preferred destinations for quality and technology.

The study will facilitate the emerging markets' governments, hospitals and medical tourists to understand the importance of various determinants responsible for availing medical treatment outside their country.

The study recommends that cost and quality care are the patients' prime focus; government policies must provide clear guidelines on what the hospitals and country environment can offer and accordingly align the marketing strategies.

This study is the first attempt to rank various factors affecting medical tourism using the FAHP approach.