An information model for lean, agile, resilient and green supply chain management

Dissertação para a obtenção de Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão IndustrialIn modern business environments, an effective Supply Chain Management (SCM) is crucial to business continuity. In this context, Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green (LARG), are advocated as the fundamental paradigm for a competitive Supply Chain (SC) as a whole. In fact, competition between supply chains (SC) has replaced the traditional competition between companies. To make a supply chain more competitive, capable of responding to the demands of customers with agility, and capable of responding effectively to unexpected disturbance, in conjugation with environmental responsibilities, and the necessity to eliminate processes that add no value, companies must implement a set of LARG SCM practices and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure their influence on the SC performance. However, the selection of the best LARG SCM practices and KPIs is a complex decision-making problem, involving dependencies and feedbacks. Still, any decision-making must be supported by real and transparent data. This dissertation intends to provide two integrated models to assist the information management and decision-making. The first is an information model to support a LARG SCM, allowing the exchange and storage of data/information through a single information platform. In this model three types of diagrams are developed, Business Process Diagram (BPD), Use Cases Diagram and Class Diagram to assist the information platform design. The second is a decision-making model, designated LARG Analytical Network Process (ANP) to select the best LARG SCM practices/KPI to be implemented in SCs. Both models are developed and validated within the automotive SC, namely in Volkswagen Autoeuropa

The Study of Influence Factor for Female Entrepreneurship

With economic development, female entrepreneurship has increased and turned into a hot research issue in the field of management. The innate advantages and priorities empowered women with potential to be outstanding entrepreneurs; however, women still have some weaknesses. The present research investigated some female entrepreneurs and adopted Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze the factors that influence the success of female entrepreneurs. The results according to data analysis will provide along with some suggestions to female entrepreneurs that attempts to help their success.     Keywords: female entrepreneurship, influence factors, Analytic Hierarchy Proces

Comparative analysis of multicriteria decision making methods

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThe main objective of this dissertation is to perform a Comparative Analysis of different Multicriteria Decision Making Methods applied to real-world problems, in order to produce relevant information to enable the incorporation of those methods on computational platforms. The current document presents a simple case study concerning a decision support application targeted for a real problem regarding retrofitting alternatives of a building with energy efficiency impact. The application process was started with the selection of two Multicriteria Decision Making Methods guided by a preexisting framework, and resulted in the choice of AHP and PROMETHEE II methodologies. These two methods were then combined with three different decision maker profiles (Conservative, Moderate and Aggressive) created by means of risk assessment profiling techniques for portfolio allocation. Afterwards, the chosen decision criteria were disposed in a Risk Pyramid according to their inherent level of risk regarding project evaluation. A match was then performed between the decision maker profiles and each criterion, so as to define a proper set of weights for the decision criteria and preference functions, with corresponding preference and indifference thresholds. Finally, three different sets of results (one for each decision maker profile) were produced using appropriate software, and a Sensitivity Analysis was performed over the criteria to understand their influence on the solution. The general conclusion of this Comparative Analysis is that the increase in the preference modelling ability of the methods brings up the least expected alternatives as recommendations for the decision maker. Besides, we have concluded that the decision profiles that allocate bigger weights to the riskiest criteria are the ones that produce the more dispersed set of results within each method application and within each decision maker profile

Lean, agile, resilient and green supply chain management interoperability assessment methodology

Dissertação para obtenção de grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial (MEGI)Supply Chain Management has become a tactic asset for the current global competition situation. Innovative strategies such as Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green emerged as a response, requiring high levels of cooperation and of great complexity. However, the strategic alignment of operations with partners in supply chains is affected by lack of interoperability. The present work provides a framework to enhance SC competitiveness and performance by assessing interoperable SCM Practices applied in automotive industry. Through a pragmatic interoperability approach, this methodology describes in detail the form of application using analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and Fuzzy sets as support decision making models, ensuring a systematic approach to the analysis of interoperability with appropriate criteria for assessment of situations that require high levels of collaboration between partners. Through a case study in a Portuguese automaker, it was possible to test the methodology and analyse which areas lack interoperability in the implementation of SCM practices

When to make or buy?

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia de ProduçãoO âmbito deste estudo foi o de desenvolver uma metodologia de apoio à tomada de decisão quando o problema de "make-or-buy" surge. A metodologia foi desenvolvida após uma revisão à bibliografia existente e tem como base um modelo de duas fases que onde o ambiente externo vai desencadear o processo de "make-or-buy". A primeira fase tem início com três diferentes disciplinas de valor — proximidade com o cliente, liderança do produto, e a excelência operacional, que formam a disciplina do valor para o cliente. A estas disciplinas de valor estão associados seis objetivos: custo, qualidade, variabilidade, flexibilidade, tempo e o capital humano. Na segunda fase estão disponíveis três opções: Fazer, Fazer e Comprar, e Comprar. A estrutura do modelo foi desenvolvida de forma que o Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) pudesse ser aplicado na classificação dos critérios considerados. Foi também desenvolvido um procedimento para a implementação de três fases, onde uma equipa multifuncional classifica os todos os critérios. A metodologia foi implementada numa empresa que opera no setor automóvel. Apesar da aplicação prática não ter seguido os passos do procedimento de implementação, determinou-se que a melhor opção era a fazer o produto em vez de comprar ou mesmo fazer e comprar. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram coerência em cada nível, uma vez que os julgamentos/decisões tomadas foram sujeitas a uma verificação de consistência ao longo do processo. No entanto, é sugerido um maior estudo empírico para avaliar a utilidade do modelo e a sua aplicabilidade em situações reais de tomada de decisão de "make-or-buy". Este estudo seria acompanhado por "workshops" nas empresas onde a metodologia seria implementada, bem como pelo desenvolvimento de software que facilite a aplicação da metodologia de AHP

Intelligent decision support systems for collaboration in industrial plants

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Sistemas de Informação Industriais, Engenharia Electrotécnica, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThe objective of this thesis is to contribute for a structured and systematic decision-making process for industrial companies, particularly involving several actors, helping them make the best use of their resources. The paradigms of how industrial companies operate have been progressively changing over the last two decades. The flexible and dynamic flow of information and persons over companies has created new challenges and opportunities for industry. It is not possible to dissociate an enterprise from its human resources and the knowledge they create and use. Companies face decisions constantly, involving several actors and situations. With the market pressure and rapid changing environments, decisions are becoming more complex, and involving more people with complementary expertise. The knowledge processes are only efficient if the actors can anchor and relate the information handled to the extended enterprise. Therefore, an enterprise model is a fundamental aspect to support decision-making in industry. This work includes an overview of existing modelling methodologies and standards. Afterwards, it proposes an enterprise model to represent an extended or virtual enterprise, suitable not only for decision-making applications but also for others. This thesis considers methods and systems to support decision and analyses decision types and processes. Afterwards, the thesis presents some considerations on decision-making in industry and a generic decision-making process, including, a review of decision criteria commonly used in industry. Two of the methods widely used in some of the mentioned areas, case-based reasoning and the analytic hierarchy process, have been used in the scope of problem solving and decision-making, respectively. This thesis presents an approach based on a combination of case-based reasoning and analytic hierarchy process to support innovation, particularly product design in industry. The combination overcomes shortcomings of both methods to provide the most adequate decision support for multi-disciplinary teams in innovation processes. Moreover, the work presented proposes an algorithm for automatic adjustment of the weight of the actors in the decision process. This thesis includes case studies, developed in the scope of several research projects, used as practical applications of the work developed. These practical applications include seven test cases (with two manufacturing companies, two assembling companies, two engineering services companies and one software company) where the proposed enterprise model and methods have been applied with the purpose of supporting decisions. This highlights the wide application of the proposed model, describing its possible interpretations and the successful use of the decision support approach in industrial companies.Projects PICK (IST-1999-10442), AIM (IST-2001-52222), FOKSai (COOP-CT-2003-508637), InLife (FP6-2005-NMP2-CT-517018), InAmI (FP6-2004-IST-NMP-2-16788) and K-NET (FP7-ICT-1-215584), all of which were partially funded by the Research Framework Programs of the European Unio

Maintenance policy selection for ships: finding the most important criteria and considerations

Maintenance of technical capital assets is gaining increasing attention, as maintenance is an important contributor to reach the intended life-time of these expensive assets. This paper focusses on maintenance policy selection (MPS) for ships using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. It builds on earlier research where we have investigated MPS specifically for naval ships. Here, we aim to generalize our findings on naval ships towards ships in general, and to elicit the most important criteria for ship MPS. We propose an improved hierarchy of criteria that we use during six workshops at six di erent companies to investigate MPS. We conclude that it is possible to obtain meaningful outcomes using a single hierarchy of criteria at multiple companies considering various ship types. The workshops reveal that crew safety is the most important criterion when selecting a maintenance policy, followed by reliability and availability—surprisingly, costs minimization is only moderately important. Furthermore, the workshops reveal that softer criteria, such as experience with maintenance and planability, must be included in the MPS process. Finally, we see that, for ship MPS, failure-based maintenance is never preferred, and that there is no clear preference for either time/use-based maintenance or condition-based maintenance

A decision model for the sustainable protection of human rights in Italian Prison System

The work starts from an analysis of the critical problems of the prison system in Italy. It aims to develop a decision-making model to address the issue of sustainable protection of human rights in prisons. It shows how, using the Saaty AHP procedure, it is possible to have an analytical reasoning guideline for the understanding of the validity of the various alternative choices, in order to facilitate the situation of the prisoners and their reintegration into society