Applying Importance-Performance Analysis as a Service Quality Measure in Food Service Industry

As the global economy becomes a service oriented economy, food service accounts for over 20% of service revenue, with an annual growth rate of more than 3%. Compared to physical products, service features are invisible, and the production and sale occurs simultaneously. There is not easy to measure the performance of service. Therefore, the service quality of catering services is considered to be an important topic of service management. According Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) to apply blog text analyzing to point out top 10 restaurants of blog in Taiwan, what it’s popular restaurant in food service industries. This paper attempts to identify both the importance and performance of restaurant service quality in the Taiwan food service industry using the SERVQUAL and IPA model. We can conclude with certainty that three methods (SERVQUAL, IF and IPA) are able to explain significant amount of service quality. At the same time, the service quality factors of IPA model had more comprehensive consideration in comparison to those of SERVQUAL and IF

A Decision Support System for Construction Project Risk Assessment

This paper presents an integrated system in which a computer-based decision support system (DSS) for construction project risks assessment at stage of contracting and construction. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to determine the weightings of risk factors from subjective judgment of experts and practitioners, and Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision Making (FMCDM) is used to assess the synthetic judgment of risk degree for the main activities of a construction project in different phase. A simple case study illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach and developed system

A Causal Decision Making Model for Knowledge Management Capabilities to Innovation Performance in Taiwan’s High-Tech Industry

R&D and innovation is the source of technology companies’ profit. If companies cannot be smoothly implemented technological innovation and R&D investments, then they can not strengthen their competitiveness. In the light of dynamic capabilities and absorptive capacities, we need an effective multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis tools to assess the impact of organizational innovation and performance factors so that we can promote organizational innovation performance requires. This study used multiple criteria decision analysis method- DEMATEL, how influence as innovation performance on knowledge management capabilities of high-tech industry. Result of this study, enterprises can access external knowledge and make amendments to the operating principle effectively and immediately, when enhanced absorptive capabilities. Moreover, enhancing absorption capabilities will lead the improvement of dynamic capabilities to adapt to the rapidly changing competitive environment

Combining DRSA decision-rules with FCA-based DANP evaluation for financial performance improvements

This study proposes a combined method to integrate soft computing techniques and multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods to guide semiconductor companies to improve financial performance (FP) – based on logical reasoning. The complex and imprecise patterns of FP changes are explored by dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA) to find decision rules associated with FP changes. Companies may identify its underperformed criterion (gap) to conduct formal concept analysis (FCA) – by implication rules – to explore the source criteria regarding the underperformed gap. The source criteria are analysed by decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to explore the cause-effect relationship among the source criteria for guiding improvements; in the next, DEMATEL-based analytical network process (DANP) can provide the influential weights to form an evaluation model, to select or rank improvement plans. To illustrate the proposed method, the financial data of a real semiconductor company is used as an example to show the involved processes: from performance gaps identification to the selection of five assumed improvement plans. Moreover, the obtained implication rules can integrate with DEMATEL analysis to explore directional influences among the critical criteria, which may provide rich insights and managerial implications in practice. First published online: 17 Sep 201

A hierarchy fuzzy MCDM method for studying electronic marketing strategies in the information service industry

In this paper the impacts of Electronic Commerce {EC) on the international marketing strategies for the information service industries are studied. In seeking to blend humanistic concerns in this research with technological development by addressing challenges for deterministic attitudes, it also examines critical environmental factors relevant to Internet commerce in the changes of the international marketing environment. The needs for a new marketing paradigm for EC, which comes out of new trends of international electronic marketing, are also examined. The impacts of EC for the information service industry are discussed and a hierarchy fuzzy multicriteria decision-making (Fuzzy MCDM) method for evaluating the propagating EC market strategies is proposed. Finally, in order to show the practicability and usefulness in this method, an example is taken as a verifiable method. From the results of practical applications in evaluating the electronic marketing strategies, the proposed method is appropriate and appears to be ideal for a fuzzy environment

New thinking of multi-objective programming with changeable space – in search of excellence

Multi-objective programming (MOP) is a branch of mathematical programming that has been widely used to deal with various practical problems. With the introduction of new technologies and business models, a paradigm shift in optimization problems is gradually taking place from fixed to flexible optimization. For example, many organizations use outsourcing or business process reengineering (BPR) to improve or upgrade their objective and technological coefficients to achieve better performance. Hence, traditional MOP models should be extended from the concept of fixed to changeable parameters, called changeable space, which includes decision space and objective space. In this paper, we propose three kinds of MOP model with changeable parameters to help decision-makers achieve the desired point (aspiration level), which is better than the ideal point

Combining Clustering and MCDM Approach for Evaluating Customer Lifetime Value Ratings

Creating successful transaction actions to retain customers for future re-purchasing is extremely important in fiercely competitive environments. Moreover, different market strategies should be practiced for customers with different lifetime values and loyalty ratings. This work proposes a method, which combines clustering analysis and multiple criteria decision-making approach to evaluate customer lifetime value ratings, and construct the classification rules for individual clusters in market segmentation. An empirical case involving a hardware retailer is illustrated to show the usefulness for evaluating customer lifetime value ratings

Multiple Objective Planning for Production and Distribution Model of Supply Chain: Case of Bicycle Manufacturer

Under increasing globalization, enterprises view supply chains (SC) as an integration of process control and management. The bicycle industry is one of the competitive industries in Taiwan, for which there is a complete supply chain system. To internationalize and improve the competitive advantage of this industry, it is necessary for it to improve the capacity of global production and distribution. In this paper, we consider both the maximum profit of enterprises and the maximum quality of customer service, using five programming methods to construct multi-objective production and distribution models. These five methods are: compromise programming, fuzzy multi-objective programming, weighted multi-objective programming, weighted fuzzy multi-objective programming and two-phase fuzzy multi-objective programming. The results reveal that the weighted multi-objective model was better for considering the maximum profit of enterprises and the maximum quality of customer service. Finally, we use the weighted multi-objective model for sensitivity analysis. These results show that after raising the per-unit production cost in production processes, the total profit would decrease. In addition, if the unit inventory cost increases due to improving the customer service level, then the total profit might increase, but not significantly. Furthermore, the shortage cost seems have interactive behavior on the enterprises, in which an increase of inventory cost will lower shortage cost

Comments on “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview”

This paper offers comments on a previously published paper, titled “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview,” by Zavadskas and Turskis (2011). The paper's authors made great efforts to summarize MCDM methods but may have failed to consider several important new concepts and trends in the MCDM field for solving actual problems. First, the traditional model assumes the criteria are independently and hierarchically structured; however, in reality, problems are often characterized by interdependent criteria and dimensions and may even exhibit feedback-like effects. Second, relatively good solutions from the existing alternatives are replaced by aspiration levels to fit today's competitive markets. Third, the emphasis in the field has shifted from ranking and selection when determining the most preferable approaches to performance improvement of existing methods. Fourth, information fusion techniques, including the fuzzy integral method, have been developed to aggregate the performances. Finally, the original fixed resources in multi-objective programming are divided such that both decision and objective spaces are changeable. In this paper, we add new concepts and provide comments that could be thought of as an attempt to complete the original paper

Improving China’s regional financial center modernization development using a new hybrid MADM model

The regional financial center is the propeller of regional economic development. Regional financial center modernization, however, has been the predominant propulsion of economic sustainability. Decisions related to regional financial center modernization development are in­herent problems of multiple attribute decision-making (MADM), and strategically important to the government. The purpose of this paper is to set up a regional financial center improvement model for modernization development, as based on a hybrid MADM model, which addresses the main causal-effect factors and amended priorities in order to strengthen ongoing planning. This paper adopts a new hybrid MADM model combined with the DEMATEL technique to construct an influential network relationship map (INRM) and determined the influential weights of DANP. Then, a modified VIKOR method using influential weights is applied to measure and integrate the performance gaps from each criterion into dimensions, as well as the overall criterion for evaluating and improving the modernization development of the regional financial center, as based on INRM. Finally an empirical case study using data from the Guangzhou regional financial center is carried out as an example to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed hybrid MADM model for solving real-world problems. The results show the priorities for improvement, as based on the degree of the effect and impact of the dimensions, as follows: first is making “government policy”, second is enforcing “financial infrastructure and safety”, next is formulating “financial institutions and human resources”, and finally “financial service”. First published online: 22 Mar 201