Integration of MACBETH and COPRAS methods to select air compressor for a textile company

The selection of air compressor is a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem including conflicting criteria and various alternatives. Selecting the appropriate air compressor is an important decision for the company as it affects the energy consumption and operating cost. To aid the decision making process in the companies, MCDM methods are proposed in the literature. In all MCDM methods, the main goal is to select the best alternative or to rank a set of given alternatives. In this paper, the air compressor is selected for a spinning mill of a textile company with an integrated approach based on MACBETH (Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation TecHnique) and COPRAS (COmplex PRoportional ASsessment) methods. MACBETH method is utilized to determine the weights of the criteria. Then COPRAS method is used to determine the ranking of the alternatives and select the best one. © 2016 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Requirements for building information modeling based lean production management systems for construction

Smooth flow of production in construction is hampered by disparity between individual trade teams' goals and the goals of stable production flow for the project as a whole. This is exacerbated by the difficulty of visualizing the flow of work in a construction project. While the addresses some of the issues in Building information modeling provides a powerful platform for visualizing work flow in control systems that also enable pull flow and deeper collaboration between teams on and off site. The requirements for implementation of a BIM-enabled pull flow construction management software system based on the Last Planner System™, called ‘KanBIM’, have been specified, and a set of functional mock-ups of the proposed system has been implemented and evaluated in a series of three focus group workshops. The requirements cover the areas of maintenance of work flow stability, enabling negotiation and commitment between teams, lean production planning with sophisticated pull flow control, and effective communication and visualization of flow. The evaluation results show that the system holds the potential to improve work flow and reduce waste by providing both process and product visualization at the work face

A comparative study for the agricultural tractor selection problem

Agricultural tractor selection is vital for farms, farmers or other agricultural companies in terms of success and competitiveness in the global market. This selection may be assumed as a MCDM (Multi Criteria Decision Making) problem involving qualitative and quantitative factors that must be simultaneously integrated into the selection process. At the same time there are many agricultural tractor alternatives in the market when purchasing an agricultural tractor. This paper deals with the agricultural tractor selection problem using TOPSIS method. This problem is also solved with two other MCDM methods; COPRAS (COmplex PRoportional ASsessment) and EVAMIX (EVAluation of MIXed Data) to rank the tractors alternatives. Lastly Borda and Copeland methods are used to aggregate all three ranking results. © 2016 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Building Information Modeling Integrated with Electronic Commerce Material Procurement and Supplier Performance Management System

Traditional construction material procurement is being replaced by electronic commerce construction material procurement now. Building Information Modeling (BIM) has shown benefit and practical value in construction material quantity takeoff and cost estimate. However, very few efforts have been directed to the application and integration of BIM in e-commerce material procurement. The author compares the present commercial BIM and non-BIM based quantity takeoff and cost estimate software, presents one solution to link the BIM with RSMeans Unit Price cost data to generate more accurate cost estimate reports, identifies the possibility and potential benefit of integrating BIM and e-commerce software solutions in material cost estimate and procurement process, designs one weight coefficient based model to evaluate the performance of material suppliers, proposes a framework to integrate BIM with e-commerce in material procurement and supplier performance evaluation process, and develops a preliminary display version of BIM integrated with e-commerce software system

Systems design analysis applied to launch vehicle configuration

As emphasis shifts from optimum-performance aerospace systems to least lift-cycle costs, systems designs must seek, adapt, and innovate cost improvement techniques in design through operations. The systems design process of concept, definition, and design was assessed for the types and flow of total quality management techniques that may be applicable in a launch vehicle systems design analysis. Techniques discussed are task ordering, quality leverage, concurrent engineering, Pareto's principle, robustness, quality function deployment, criteria, and others. These cost oriented techniques are as applicable to aerospace systems design analysis as to any large commercial system

Dynamic and Improvisational Capabilities in Small Defense Contractor Firms: An Investigation into the Role of IT Enabled Business Processes

In turbulent environments where the competitive landscape is shifting and uncertain, the dynamic capabilities by which firm manager’s, integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences becomes the source of sustained competitive advantage. As they attempt to reconfigure their organizational competencies, firms are turning to Information Technology (IT) resources as an enabling resource. While the importance of dynamic capabilities has been widely recognized, in today’s fast paced and ever changing business landscape, the need for improvisational capabilities has also been underscored. Whereas dynamic capabilities refer to the ability to respond to change through “planned” reconfiguration in moderately turbulent times, improvisational capabilities refer to the ability to respond to change through “spontaneous” reconfiguration in highly turbulent times. This study begins to defragment dynamic and improvisational capability literature and demonstrate the need for these two complementary capabilities. This study also develops and offers an initial prescription for executing these complementary capabilities. This study highlights the significant differences in the execution of dynamic and improvisational capabilities at the sub-routine level. Lastly, this study offers valuable insight into how IT can enable both dynamic and improvisational capabilities

Application of integrated fuzzy VIKOR & AHP methodology to contractor ranking

Contractor selection is a critical activity, which plays an important role in the overall success of any construction project. The implementation of fuzzy multiple criteria decision attribute (MCDA) in selecting contractors has the advantage of rendering subjective and implicit decision making more objective and transparent. An additional merit of fuzzy MCDA is the ability to accommodate quantitative and qualitative information. In this paper, an integrated VIKOR–AHP methodology is proposed to make a selection among the alternative contractors in one of Iranian construction industry projects. In the proposed methodology, the weights of the selection criteria are determined by fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices of AHP

A Qualitative Analysis of the Elements Required for the Successful Implementation of the \u27Rolling Down-Select Strategy\u27

This research explored the elements required for the successful implementation of the \u27rolling down-select strategy\u27 Inspired by Lightning Bolt 10, this study investigated five acquisitions which have or are in the process of implementing the \u27rolling down-select strategy\u27 The results suggest several elements which appear to contribute to the successful use of the \u27rolling down- select strategy\u27 These findings can be used by acquisition planners to aid in determining whether or not the \u27rolling down-select strategy\u27 is a viable strategy for their particular acquisition