STUDY TOWARDS THE TIME-BASED MCDA RANKING ANALYSIS – A SUPPLIER SELECTION CASE STUDY

Decision-making processes increasingly use models based on various methods to ensure professional analysis and evaluation of the considered alternatives. However, the abundance of these methods makes it difficult to choose the proper method to solve a given problem. Also, it is worth noting whether different results can be obtained using different methods within a single decision problem. In this paper, we used three selected Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods called COMET, TOPSIS, and SPOTIS in order to examine how the obtained rankings vary. The selection of material suppliers was taken into consideration. The equal weights, entropy and standard deviation methods were used to determine the weights for criteria. Final preferences values were then compared with the WS similarity coefficient and weighted Spearman correlation coefficient to check the similarity of the received rankings. It was noticed that in the given problem, all of the methods provide highly correlated results, and the obtained positional rankings are not significantly different. However, practical conclusions indicate the need to look for improved solutions in the correct and accurate assessment of suppliers in a given period

An evaluation of water treatment technologies for sustainable rural communities

This paper presents the initial stages of research funded by the Scottish Government to enable an evaluation of the suitability of drinking water treatment technologies at small to medium scales to facilitate the application of the Scottish Government’s Sustainable Rural Communities concept. The research included a technology scan to identify relevant drinking water treatment technologies suitable for small and medium sized rural communities in Scotland and an expert stakeholder workshop to verify and refine the technology inventory. The stakeholder workshop was also used to identify suitable selection criteria for Sustainable Rural Community drinking water projects. The criteria can be used in subsequent multi-stakeholder decision making for the most sustainable treatment options for specific communities. An explanation is provided on the methodology and the types of information that were collected and the outcomes of the research. <br/

Designing logistics networks based on sustainable tertiary transport packaging solutions under a circular economy

The packaging industry has a considerable impact in the economy, environment and society. Along with its increasing importance, comes a high responsibility regarding its effect on sustainability, a growing matter of concern in the recent years. Political pressure and consumer perceptions are pushing the packaging industry to adopt sustainable practices such as the use of alternative sustainable materials. Packaging is divided in primary, secondary and tertiary levels and tertiary packaging plays a major role in transportation processes to increase the logistics efficiency of supply chains. However, tertiary transport packaging is generating excessive waste. For reasons like this, the Circular Economy emerges as an alternative economic model, in which Supply Chain Management assumes high relevance for implementing a logistics network design that entails Closed-Loop Supply Chains. This Thesis has the objective of designing alternative logistics networks, based on sustainable tertiary transport packaging solutions, under a context of Circular Economy, meanwhile contributing for the practical solution of a company’s business challenge. Based on a literature review, insights on important areas are systematized to proceed with an analyzis of packaging suppliers’ logistics networks with sustainable closed-loop practices that impact sustainability performance of their supply chains. The best material-supplier option is selected to proceed with a case study where different scenarios are assumed. Finally, important conclusions and solutions are presented to improve the performance of the selected logistics network.A indústria das embalagens gera um impacto considerável na economia, ambiente e sociedade. Existe uma responsabilidade maior no que diz respeito ao seu efeito na sustentabilidade, uma questão cada vez mais preocupante nos últimos anos. A pressão política e a perceção do consumidor estão a forçar a indústria das embalagens a adotar práticas sustentáveis tais como o uso de materiais alternativos sustentáveis. As embalagens dividem-se em primárias, secundárias e terciárias, sendo que as terciárias desempenham um papel importante no transporte, de forma a aumentar a eficiência logística das cadeias de abastecimento. Contudo, as embalagens terciárias de transporte geram desperdício excessivo. Posto isto, a Economia Circular surge como um modelo económico alternativo, onde a gestão da cadeia de abastecimento assume elevada relevância para implementar um design de rede logística que envolva Cadeias de Abastecimento de Circuito Fechado. Esta Tese tem como objetivo conceber redes logísticas alternativas, baseadas em soluções sustentáveis de embalagens terciárias de transporte, num contexto de Economia Circular, enquanto contribui para a resolução prática do desafio de uma empresa. Com base numa revisão de literatura, procede-se a uma sistematização de conhecimento em áreas importantes para analisar redes logísticas de fornecedores de embalagens, com práticas sustentáveis de circuito fechado que impactam o desempenho de sustentabilidade das suas cadeias de abastecimento. A melhor opção de material-fornecedor é selecionada para prosseguir com um estudo de caso onde diferentes cenários são assumidos. Por fim, são apresentadas conclusões e soluções importantes para melhorar o desempenho da rede logística selecionada

MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities

The "MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities" Working Paper aims to compile and reflect previous and on-going work within the Helmholtz Association related to MCDA, in particular, to present use cases and key methodological aspects. It has a focus on but is not limited to energy technologies and systems and is mainly based on the presentations held at the online workshop “Multi criteria decision analysis for sustainability assessment of energy technologies and systems”. The workshop was organized within the activities of the Helmholtz program ESD Topic 1 "Energy System Transformation" and took place on November 22nd, 2021

Ranqueamento de sistemas de produtos baseado na avaliação da sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida: tomada de decisão estocástica baseada em múltiplos critérios

Purpose – Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) provides useful and comprehensive information on product system performance. However, it poses several challenges for decision-making process due to (i) multidimensional indicators, (ii) conflicting objectives and (iii) uncertainty associated with the performance assessment. This research proposes an approach able to account uncertain life cycle sustainability performances through multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) process to support decision-making.Design/methodology/approach – Our method is structured in three phases: i) assessing the uncertainty of LCSA performances, ii) propagating LCSA uncertainty into MCDA methods and iii) interpreting the stochastic results. The approach is applied on an illustrative case study, ranking four alternatives to biodiesel supply.Findings –The recommendation generated by this approach provides an information about the confidence the decision maker can have in a given result (ranking of solutions) under the form of a probability, providing a better knowledge of the risk (in this case due to the uncertainty of the preferred solution). As such, stochastic results, if appropriately interpreted, provide a measure of the robustness of the rankings generated by MCDA methods, overcoming the limitation of the overconfidence of deterministic rankings.Originality/value – The fundamental contributions of this paper are to (i) integrate LCSA uncertainty into decision-making processes through MCDA approach; (ii) provide a sensitivity analysis about the MCDA method choice, (iii) support decision-makers’ preference choices through a transparent elicitation process and (iv) provide a practical decision-making platform that accounts simultaneously uncertain LCSA performances with stakeholders’ value judgments.Propósito – A avaliação de sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida (LCSA) fornece informações úteis e abrangentes sobre o desempenho de um sistema de produtos. Entretanto, existem alguns desafios associado ao processo de tomada de decisão envolvendo esses resultados: (i) indicadores multidimensionais, (ii) objetivos conflitantes e (iii) incerteza associada à avaliação de desempenho. Esta pesquisa propõe uma abordagem que considera a incerteza do desempenho em termos de sustentabilidade do ciclo de vida através do processo de análise de decisão baseado em múltiplos critérios (MCDA) para apoiar a tomada de decisão.Metodologia – Nosso método está estruturado em três fases: i) avaliação da incerteza do desempenho obtido por meio da LCSA, ii) propagação da incerteza da LCSA nos métodos MCDA e iii) interpretação dos resultados estocásticos. A abordagem foi aplicada em um estudo de caso ilustrativo, classificando quatro alternativas de fornecimento de biodiesel.Resultados –  A recomendação gerada por esta abordagem fornece uma informação sobre a confiança que o tomador de decisão pode ter em um determinado resultado (classificação de soluções) sob a forma de uma probabilidade, proporcionando um melhor conhecimento do risco (neste caso devido à incerteza da solução preferida). Assim, os resultados estocásticos, se interpretados de forma adequada, fornecem uma medida da robustez dos rankings gerados pelos métodos MCDA, superando a limitação do excesso de confiança dos rankings determinísticos.Originalidade – As contribuições fundamentais deste artigo são (i) integrar a incerteza da LCSA nos processos de tomada de decisão por meio da abordagem MCDA; (ii) fornecer uma análise de sensibilidade sobre a escolha do método MCDA, (iii) apoiar as escolhas de preferência dos tomadores de decisão por meio de um processo de elicitação transparente e (iv) fornecer uma plataforma de tomada de decisão prática que contabiliza simultaneamente os desempenhos das performances LCSA incertas com julgamentos de valor das partes interessadas

Bibliometric analysis of scientific production on methods to aid decision making in the last 40 years

Purpose: Multicriteria methods have gained traction in both academia and industry practices for effective decision-making over the years. This bibliometric study aims to explore and provide an overview of research carried out on multicriteria methods, in its various aspects, over the past forty-four years. Design/Methodology/Approach: The Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases were searched for publications from January 1945 to April 29, 2021, on multicriteria methods in titles, abstracts, and keywords. The bibliographic data were analyzed using the R bibliometrix package. Findings: This bibliometric study asserts that 29,050 authors have produced 20,861 documents on the theme of multicriteria methods in 131 countries in the last forty-four years. Scientific production in this area grows at a rate of 13.88 per year. China is the leading country in publications with 14.14%; India with 10.76%; and Iran with 8.09%. Islamic Azad University leads others with 504 publications, followed by the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University with 456 and the National Institute of Technology with 336. As for journals, Expert Systems With Applications; Sustainability; and Journal of Cleaner Production are the leading journals, which account for more than 4.67% of all indexed literature. Furthermore, Zavadskas E. and Wang J have the highest publications in the multicriteria methods domain regarding the authors. Regarding the most commonly used multicriteria decision-making methods, AHP is the most favored approach among the ten countries with the most publications in this research area, followed by TOPSIS, VIKOR, PROMETHEE, and ANP. Practical implications: The bibliometric literature review method allows the researchers to explore the multicriteria research area more extensively than the traditional literature review method. It enables a large dataset of bibliographic records to be systematically analyzed through statistical measures, yielding informative insights. Originality/value: The usefulness of this bibliometric study is summed in presenting an overview of the topic of the multicriteria methods during the previous forty-four years, allowing other academics to use this research as a starting point for their research

Importance of freight mode choice criteria: An MCDA approach

Road transportation has been the dominant mode for inland freight transportation for decades. Rail and waterways transportation are less frequently used alternatives, but in general more attractive from an environmental perspective. Even though many policies promoting the use of intermodal transportation have been proposed, they have had little impact to trigger shippers to shift mode from road transportation to rail or inland waterways transportation. One main reason might be that the requirements of shippers towards transportation modes are still not well understood. Hence this research investigates freight transportation mode choice with a new approach, multi-criteria decision analysis, as well as from the perspectives of different types of industries and experts. Reviewing the literature, the requirements for transportation modes are abstracted into a set of criteria, including transportation cost, door-to-door travel time, on-time reliability, flexibility, frequency, and reduction of CO2 emissions. As the importance of these factors might be different for different industries, we consider four segments: the manufacturing industry, the agriculture industry, the perishable food industry, and the chemical industry. Data from practitioners, industry experts, and academics are collected via online questionnaires and analyzed using the ‘best worst method’ (BWM) to identify weights for the mentioned criteria. The results indicate that transportation cost is viewed as the most important, closely followed by on-time reliability, while reduction of CO2 emission is viewed as the least important. Several comparison studies are conducted to see any difference in the importance of these factors with respect to different industries or respondent groups

Multi crteria decision making and its applications : a literature review

This paper presents current techniques used in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and their applications. Two basic approaches for MCDM, namely Artificial Intelligence MCDM (AIMCDM) and Classical MCDM (CMCDM) are discussed and investigated. Recent articles from international journals related to MCDM are collected and analyzed to find which approach is more common than the other in MCDM. Also, which area these techniques are applied to. Those articles are appearing in journals for the year 2008 only. This paper provides evidence that currently, both AIMCDM and CMCDM are equally common in MCDM

Decision support models for supplier development: Systematic literature review and research agenda

The continuing trend towards sourcing components and semi-finished goods for less vertically integrated manufacturing systems globally leads to a dramatic increase in supply options for companies. To ensure that companies benefit from the potentials global sourcing offers, supplier-buyer relationships need to be managed efficiently. Due to the decreasing share of value-adding activities provided in-house, suppliers are more and more considered as an essential contributor to the buying company's competitive position. Consequently, to realize and sustain competitive advantages, companies try to establish institutionalized long-term relationships to their most important suppliers and to actively improve the productivity and performance of their supplier base. To support supplier development in practice, researchers have developed decision support models that provide assistance in selecting and implementing suitable supplier development activities. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of decision support models for supplier development and to develop a research agenda that helps to identify promising areas for future research in this area. First, typical applications for supplier development as well as potential development measures that can be adopted to improve the performance of suppliers are identified. Secondly, a systematic literature review with a focus on decision support models for supplier development is conducted. Based on the analysis of the literature, we define a research agenda that synthesizes key trends and promising research opportunities and thus highlight areas where more decision support models are needed to foster supplier development initiatives in practice