Supplier selection in Telecom supply chain management: a Fuzzy-Rasch based COPRAS-G method

In the past decade, global competition are forcing firms to increase their level of outsourcing for raw or semi-finished products and building long term relationship with their supply chain partners. The objective is to present a wide-ranging decision making technique for ranking supplier alternatives in view of the effect of selected criteria. A proposed method is developed aiming the usage of Fuzzy-Rasch model applying five point Likert scale for criteria weight and Grey based COmplex PRoportional ASsessment (COPRAS-G) method for evaluating and ranking the potential alternatives, as per criteria. The applicability of the induced methodology for supplier selection problem in all environments is shown through a case study in telecommunication sector. A sensitivity analysis is performed based on changing weight patterns of criteria to show the stability in ranking result of the proposed approach. Further, a comparative analysis between the ranking results of proposed method done with existing grey multi-attribute decision-making methods viz. VIKOR-G, ARAS-G and TOPSIS-G using spearman’s correlation coefficient for checking the reliability of the ranking result

Multi-Objective and Multi-Attribute Optimisation for Sustainable Development Decision Aiding

Optimization is considered as a decision-making process for getting the most out of available resources for the best attainable results. Many real-world problems are multi-objective or multi-attribute problems that naturally involve several competing objectives that need to be optimized simultaneously, while respecting some constraints or involving selection among feasible discrete alternatives. In this Reprint of the Special Issue, 19 research papers co-authored by 88 researchers from 14 different countries explore aspects of multi-objective or multi-attribute modeling and optimization in crisp or uncertain environments by suggesting multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) and multi-objective decision-making (MODM) approaches. The papers elaborate upon the approaches of state-of-the-art case studies in selected areas of applications related to sustainable development decision aiding in engineering and management, including construction, transportation, infrastructure development, production, and organization management

A multi-criteria decision making for renewable energy selection using Z-numbers in uncertain environment

In recent era of globalization, the world is perceiving an alarming rise in its energy consumption resulting in shortage of fossil fuels in near future. Developing countries like India, with fast growing population and economy, is planning to explore among its existing renewable energy sources to meet the acute shortage of overall domestic energy supply. For balancing diverse ecological, social, technical and economic features, selection among alternative renewable energy must be addressed in a multi-criteria context considering both subjective and objective criteria weights. In the proposed COPRAS-Z methodology, Z-number model fuzzy numbers with reliability degree to represents imprecise judgment of decision makers’ in evaluating the weights of criteria and selection of renewable energy alternatives. The fuzzy numbers are defuzzified and renewable energy alternatives are prioritized as per COmplex PropoRtional ASsessment (COPRAS) decision making method in terms of significance and utility degree. A sensitivity analysis is done to observe the variation in ranking of the criteria, by altering the coefficient of both subjective and objective weight. Also, the proposed methodology is compared with existing multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods for checking validity of the obtained ranking result

Video trajectory analysis using unsupervised clustering and multi-criteria ranking

Surveillance camera usage has increased significantly for visual surveillance. Manual analysis of large video data recorded by cameras may not be feasible on a larger scale. In various applications, deep learning-guided supervised systems are used to track and identify unusual patterns. However, such systems depend on learning which may not be possible. Unsupervised methods relay on suitable features and demand cluster analysis by experts. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised trajectory clustering method referred to as t-Cluster. Our proposed method prepares indexes of object trajectories by fusing high-level interpretable features such as origin, destination, path, and deviation. Next, the clusters are fused using multi-criteria decision making and trajectories are ranked accordingly. The method is able to place abnormal patterns on the top of the list. We have evaluated our algorithm and compared it against competent baseline trajectory clustering methods applied to videos taken from publicly available benchmark datasets. We have obtained higher clustering accuracies on public datasets with significantly lesser computation overhead

Game theory based multi criteria decision making problem under uncertainty: a case study on Indian Tea Industry

The long-term evolution of multi agent multi criteria decision making (MCDM) and to obtain sustainable decision a novel methodology is proposed based on evolutionary game theory. In this paper multi agent MCDM is represented as an evolutionary game and the evolutionary strategies are defined as sustainable decisions. Here we consider the problem of decision making in Indian Tea Industry. The agents in this game are essentially Indian Tea Estate owner and Indian Tea board. The replicator dynamics of the evolutionary game are studied to obtain evolutionary strategies which could be defined as sustainable strategies. The multi agent MCDM in Indian Tea Industry is considered under different socio-political and Corporate Social Responsibility scenario and groups of Indian Tea Industry. Again, the impacts of imprecision and market volatility on the outcome of some strategies (decisions) are studied. In this paper the imprecision on the impact of the strategies are modelled as fuzzy numbers whereas the market volatility is taken into account as white noise. Hence the MCDM problem for Indian Tea Industry is modelled as a hybrid evolutionary game. The probabilities of strategies are obtained by solving hybrid evolutionary game and could be represented as a Dempster-Shafer belief structure. The simulation results facilitate the Decision Makers to choose the strategies (decisions) under different type of uncertainty