An integrated approach of multiple correspondences analysis (MCA) and fuzzy AHP method for occupational health and safety performance evaluation in the land cargo transportation

Land cargo transportation is one of the components of the logistics chain with high impact on economic and social development worldwide. However, problems such as top logistics costs, deficiencies in transportation infrastructure and the failure to adopt good operating practices in aspects such as quality, environment, and occupational safety and health affect the ability of companies to comply with the agreements, requirements, and regulations of the clients and other interested parties. One of the most relevant problems for the sector is associated with the high accident rates that make this medium less advantageous compared to other means of transport with impact on operational costs, on logistics indicators, on compliance with legal regulations and customer satisfaction. However, although there are legal standards and management standards in occupational safety and health, evaluating performance can become a difficult and subjective process, due to the complexity of the land cargo transportation and the different interest groups involved. Besides, there is little information in the literature that provides solutions for the industry. Therefore, this document presents an integrated approach between multi-criterion decision making models (MCDM) and the Multiple Correspondences Analysis (MCA) to facilitate the evaluation and improvement of occupational health and safety performance, with a logical process, objective, robust and using both qualitative and quantitative techniques, with real application in the land cargo transportation sector. First, the multivariate method of Multiple Correspondences Analysis (MCA) was used for the evaluation of a sample of companies in the industry, considering the factors and sub-factors identified in the first stage and performing correlational analyzes among the variables. Subsequently, a multicriteria decision-making model was designed to determine the factors and sub-factors that affect occupational health and safety performance through the technique of the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). Finally, improvement strategies are proposed based on the approaches suggested in this document

A review on assembly sequence planning and assembly line balancing optimisation using soft computing approaches

Assembly optimisation activities occur across development and production stages of manufacturing goods. Assembly Sequence Planning (ASP) and Assembly Line Balancing (ALB) problems are among the assembly optimisation. Both of these activities are classified as NP-hard. Several soft computing approaches using different techniques have been developed to solve ASP and ALB. Although these approaches do not guarantee the optimum solution, they have been successfully applied in many ASP and ALB optimisation works. This paper reported the survey on research in ASP and ALB that use soft computing approaches for the past 10years. To be more specific, only Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problem (SALBP) is considered for ALB. The survey shows that three soft computing algorithms that frequently used to solve ASP and ALB are Genetic Algorithm, Ant Colony Optimisation and Particle Swarm Optimisation. Meanwhile, the research in ASP and ALB is also progressing to the next level by integration of assembly optimisation activities across product development stages

Decisions of Intelligent Support for Supplier Selection

This paper examines the problem of supplier selection. The supplier selection process has been expressed as decision cycle, which involves such phases: searching for suppliers, preliminary selection, complex evaluation, negotiations, preparing a contract, monitoring. The present situation in this field has been described in such a way: large interest to increase validity of decisions for supplier selection from side of business practice, diversity of methods and models for supplier selection suggested by researchers, the episodic character of putting into practice this methodical potential. In order to improve such a situation, we see a need to develop the medium of intelligent support for supplier selection decisions. The suggested variant of integrated decisions intelligent support system is provided. The components of expert judgment support, individual decision support, group decision support and negotiations support have been incorporated into proposed system. The content and process of decisions support have been specified in accordance with character of every phase of supplier selection cycle

Supplier evaluation and selection: a review of the literature since 2007

Supplier selection is currently a subject of great importance to companies. Numerous articles have been published recently, recommending different methods and/or procedures for evaluating and selecting the suppliers with whom the purchasing company will work. The present article reviews a total of 39 articles dealing with this subject, published between 2007 and the present day, in magazines indexed by Journal Citation Reports (in ISI Web of Knowledge). They will be analyzed in order to determine: (i) procedures used in determining criteria, (ii) identification and structure of the criteria under consideration, (iii) methods used to evaluate and select the suppliers and (iv) aims in the selection of suppliers