Using entropy and AHP-TOPSIS for comprehensive evaluation of internet shopping malls and solution optimality

Consumers are switching from offline to online to buy everything due to this reason nowadays Internet shopping malls (ISMs) are setting up a very crucial role in the economy. For assessment and ranking are basically a critical work which could be exploitation of Internet shopping malls information resources when consider in a scientific way, there are many methods for the evaluation and ranking of e-commerce sites. Taking into consideration Traffic Rank, Inbound Links, Competition, Speed, and Keyword Statistics, in literature Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are rarely used by the researchers to find the rank of Internet Shopping Malls (ISMs) on the basis of primary/secondary data of these influencing factors. This study, therefore, is unique to narrow down the gap in literature by employing MCDM methods i.e. Entropy and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to collect the weight of influencing factors and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal (TOPSIS) to find the rank of Internet Shopping Malls (ISMs). After finding out the rank of selected criteria, solution optimality needs to be done to find the average ideal solution matrix. Conclusion and managerial implications of the study are also discussed.N/

Türkiye’deki ticari bankaların web sitesi performansları

The purpose of this paper is to measure the performances of commercial banks’ websites in Turkey by using “MultiCriteria Decision Making” (MCDM). The use of three MCDM methods (AHP, TOPSIS, VIKOR) consecutively constitutes the originality of this study. Based on the literature and expert opinions, 6 performance criteria (load time, page speed, markup, speed index, visitors, pageviews) and 5 website analysis tools were determined. First, the significance weights of the criteria were calculated with AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process). Second, the data obtained in the 2-month period were analyzed by TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and VIKOR (Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) methods. “Page speed” was found to be the most important criterion in performance of banks’ websites. Most successful banks in terms of website efficiency are Garanti BBVA, Isbank and QNB Finansbank according to TOPSIS whereas QNB Finansbank, Garanti BBVA and Halkbank according to VIKOR results. It is observed that banks with high deposits and number of branches and employees do not show the same success in website performance. The results are expected to shed light on managers who want to set policies and strategies for digital banking applications.Bu çalışmanın amacı, “Çok Kriterli Karar Verme” (ÇKKV) yöntemlerini kullanarak, Türkiye’deki ticari bankaların web sitesi performanslarını ölçmektir. Bu kapsamda üç ÇKKV yönteminin (AHP, TOPSIS, VIKOR) bir arada kullanılması, çalışmanın özgünlüğünü oluşturmaktadır. Literatüre ve uzmanların görüşlerine dayanarak, 6 performans kriteri (yükleme süresi, sayfa hızı, biçimlendirme, hız endeksi, ziyaretçiler, sayfa görünümleri) ve 5 web sitesi analiz aracı belirlenmiştir. Çalışmanın ilk aşamasında AHP (Analitik Hiyerarşi Süreci) yöntemi ile kriterlerin önem ağırlıkları hesaplanmıştır. İkinci aşamada, 2 aylık periyotta elde edilen verilerin TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) ve VIKOR (Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) yöntemleri ile analizi yapılmıştır. Bulgulara göre, “sayfa hızı” değişkeninin, banka web sitelerinin performans değerlendirmesinde en önemli kriter olduğu saptanmıştır. TOPSIS yönteminde Garanti BBVA, İş Bankası ve QNB Finansbank web sitesi performansında en başarılı Türk ticari bankaları olmuştur. VIKOR yöntemine göre ise QNB Finansbank, Garanti BBVA ve Halkbank en başarılı bankalardır. Mevduat hacmi büyük, şube ve çalışan sayısı yüksek olan bankaların, web sitesi performansında aynı başarıyı göstermedikleri gözlemlenmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçların, dijital bankacılık uygulamalarına yönelik politika ve strateji belirlemek isteyen yöneticilere ışık tutması beklenmektedir

Railway Container Station Reselection Approach and Application: Based on Entropy-Cloud Model

Reasonable railway container freight stations layout means higher transportation efficiency and less transportation cost. To obtain more objective and accurate reselection results, a new entropy-cloud approach is formulated to solve the problem. The approach comprises three phases: Entropy Method is used to obtain the weight of each subcriterion during Phase  1, then cloud model is designed to form the evaluation cloud for each subcriterion during Phase  2, and finally during Phase  3 we use the weight during Phase  1 to multiply the initial evaluation cloud during Phase  2. MATLAB is applied to determine the evaluation figures and help us to make the final alternative decision. To test our approach, the railway container stations in Wuhan Railway Bureau were selected for our case study. The final evaluation result indicates only Xiangyang Station should be renovated and developed as a Special Transaction Station, five other stations should be kept and developed as Ordinary Stations, and the remaining 16 stations should be closed. Furthermore, the results show that, before the site reselection process, the average distance between two railway container stations was only 74.7 km but has improved to 182.6 km after using the approach formulated in this paper

A state-of-art survey on TQM applications using MCDM techniques

In today’s competitive economy, quality plays an essential role for the success business units and there are considerable efforts made to control and to improve quality characteristics in order to satisfy customers’ requirements. However, improving quality is normally involved with various criteria and we need to use Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to handle such cases. In this state-of the-art literature survey, 45 articles focused on solving quality problems by MCDM methods are investigated. These articles were published between 1994 and 2013.Seven areas were selected for categorization: (1) AHP, Fuzzy AHP, ANP and Fuzzy ANP, (2) DEMATEL and Fuzzy DEMATEL, (3) GRA, (4) Vikor and Fuzzy Vikor, (5) TOPSIS, Fuzzy TOPSIS and combination of TOPSIS and AHP, (6) Fuzzy and (7) Less frequent and hybrid procedures. According to our survey, Fuzzy based methods were the most popular technique with about 40% usage among procedures. Also AHP and ANP were almost 20% of functional methods. This survey ends with giving recommendation for future researches

Modeling cross‐border supply chain collaboration: the case of the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has resulted in international, cross-border supply chains returning to a new prominence. The BRI presents opportunities for cross-border supply chain collaboration (SCC) research. Assessing the influencing factors of cross-border SCC is beneficial for understanding and improving this evolving, globally influential international trade policy. The BRI is quite complex so that subjective assessment methods are useful but need to be improved. To address this issue, this paper initially develops a cross-border SCC factor framework based on synergetic theory. A vague set and DEMATEL methods are integrated to form a unified model to support the assessment. A combination weighting that uses analytic hierarchy process and an entropy weighting method, that is, a data crawler for BRI-related documents, to ensure that objective importance weights of the factors in the Belt and Road context are achieved. The results show that information sharing, profit allotment, the degree of trust, and goal congruence as common drivers of SCC are not driving factors in the Belt and Road cross-border context. They are core issues that do not affect cross-border SCC directly. Senior manager support and customs regulation are two important drivers of cross-border SCC. The practitioners of cross-border SCC should not only focus on the support from senior managers and customs regulation but also attempt to improve performance, such as information sharing and trust, to obtain more support from senior managers and policy makers to promote cross-border SCC indirectly

Measuring the Quality of Financial Electronic Payment System: Combined with Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS

The study aims to apply Fuzzy AHP in TOPSIS to discuss the key factors that foster the success of current third-party online payment platforms. This study organized the quality measurements into four categories and eleven sub-categories. The AHP in TOPSIS is applied to calculate the weighted averages of all categories and sub-categories to measure the quality of third-party online payment platforms. This study finds that “safety quality” is the most emphasized category, “system quality” is the second, “communication quality” is the third, and “service quality” is the least emphasized

Comparison of Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods SAW and ARAS: An Application to Performance of Indian Pharmaceutical Companies

While assessing the performances of companies, the decision makers to take not only a single criterion for making the right decisions in to account, but also a number of other relevant criteria that could affect the performance. Because when it is necessary to make the best selection among several option, Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are used. This study is to provide insight in to the applicability of method Simple Additive Weightings Method (SAW) and Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method under MCDM techniques to evaluate the performance of Indian Pharmaceutical companies during the study period 2006-2019. The seventeen evaluation criteria’s were used in the application. The constructed model was analysed using both SAW and ARAS method. The study results showed that the best performance belongs to Glico Smith Kline Pharma Limited in SAW method and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in ARAS method and worst performance belongs to Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited in both methods. By comparison, both methods revealed the similar rankings of companies during the study period

Uncertain Multi-Criteria Optimization Problems

Most real-world search and optimization problems naturally involve multiple criteria as objectives. Generally, symmetry, asymmetry, and anti-symmetry are basic characteristics of binary relationships used when modeling optimization problems. Moreover, the notion of symmetry has appeared in many articles about uncertainty theories that are employed in multi-criteria problems. Different solutions may produce trade-offs (conflicting scenarios) among different objectives. A better solution with respect to one objective may compromise other objectives. There are various factors that need to be considered to address the problems in multidisciplinary research, which is critical for the overall sustainability of human development and activity. In this regard, in recent decades, decision-making theory has been the subject of intense research activities due to its wide applications in different areas. The decision-making theory approach has become an important means to provide real-time solutions to uncertainty problems. Theories such as probability theory, fuzzy set theory, type-2 fuzzy set theory, rough set, and uncertainty theory, available in the existing literature, deal with such uncertainties. Nevertheless, the uncertain multi-criteria characteristics in such problems have not yet been explored in depth, and there is much left to be achieved in this direction. Hence, different mathematical models of real-life multi-criteria optimization problems can be developed in various uncertain frameworks with special emphasis on optimization problems

Investigating e-procurement barriers within six Saudi Arabian SMEs

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Bedfordshire.This study aims to investigate factors affecting the adoption of e-procurement in Saudi Arabian SMEs. The study adopted the Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model as a theoretical framework and foundation for the research to investigate current status and readiness, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, perceived critical success factors and perceived future organisational performance. Through an extensive literature review and detailed data analysis, the study extended the model to incorporate perceived cultural and external factors that were found to be necessary for the adoption of e-procurement in Saudi Arabian SMEs. Through case studies and AHP analysis, the proposed model elements were validated and prioritised in the Saudi Arabian context. Three different methods were adopted for data collection. First, an exploratory study was conducted to understand the current status of e-procurement and provide an overview of the factors that affect the adoption of e-procurement using the Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model.Second, a detailed survey was conducted to find the relative importance of various factors related to each of the five elements of the Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model. Third, detailed interviews were conducted across four selected SMEs to gain an insight into the factors that affect the adoption of e-procurement. The results of the exploratory study were helpful in identifying perceived factors that affect the adoption of e-procurement. Detailed survey analysis using AHP validated the theoretical framework and the relevance of the factors of the Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model. However, some of the factors were found to be more important than in the Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model, while others were less important. Results of the qualitative study (interviews) found additional factors that were relevant to each of the five elements of the GN model. They further suggested that “Current e-procurement activities” was an additional factor in the “current status and readiness” element and “Increased transparency” was an additional factor in the “perceived benefits” element. Similarly, the analysis of the qualitative results found two additional factors in the “perceived barriers” element (i.e. absence of e-procurement specific laws and regulations and lack of trust in the electronic transfer of funds), three additional critical success factors (i.e. cost-benefit analysis of the solution, technical maturity of the marketplace and user-friendliness of the solution) and two additional factors in perceived future organisational performance (i.e. strategic alliance and networking and knowledge management and data warehousing). Further, analysis of the qualitative findings revealed two additional elements (i.e. perceived external and perceived cultural factors). The study thus suggests that organisational culture, cultural inertia and business culture of the country are three important cultural factors that are perceived to affect the adoption of e-procurement, while government support, having one’s own postal addresses and delivery services, providing secure and trustworthy online payment options, low cost and high speed internet connection, suppliers’ willingness and readiness, pressure from competitors, policy and regulations are the seven important perceived external factors that affect the adoption of e-procurement in Saudi Arabian SMEs. The results of the qualitative data analysis led to the development of an extended Gunasekaran and Ngai (2009) model to incorporate perceived culture and perceived external factors. The study has significant implications in terms of further e-procurement research for SMEs in Saudi Arabia and also its adoption in the developing world in general