The distribution strategy selection for an e-tailer using a hybrid DANP VIKOR MCDM model

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit Titiyal ◽  
Sujoy Bhattacharya ◽  
Jitesh J. Thakkar

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to apply a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework to evaluate distribution strategies for an e-tailer. An application of MCDM method, the hybrid DANP–VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) model, is used for e-tailers’ distribution strategy evaluation. The choice of distribution strategies under various dimensions is evaluated. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a hybrid MCDM model to solve the decision-making framework, which combines Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), DEMATEL-based analytic network process and VIKOR method. Data were collected from the experts (e-tail manager, logistics manager, operations manager and distribution center (DC) manager) using two questionnaires, first for the influential relationship among the criteria and dimensions and second for a performance rating of each alternative (distribution strategies) against each criterion. Findings DANP with VIKOR method prioritizes the distribution strategies in the following order: DC shipment, drop shipment, click and collect, store shipment and click and reserve. Performance gap was calculated based on the VIKOR method to provide distribution strategies to an e-tailer under different situations. The authors infer that in developing country, product characteristics and transportation have a major influence on deciding the distribution strategy. Practical implications Decision-making framework will provide e-tail mangers a knowledge-based understanding to select the distribution strategy under the different situations related to the performance, product, e-tailer and external characteristics for smooth order fulfillment process. The insights developed by this research provide a framework for rational decision making in distribution strategy selection in e-business. Originality/value This is the first kind of a study which offers a decision framework for e-tail managers on how to choose distribution strategies under different situations which are related to the performance, product, e-tailer and external characteristics.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-525
Author(s):  
Mary C. Kurian ◽  
Shalij P.R. ◽  
Pramod V.R.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the application of analytic network process (ANP) as a methodology to make multiple criteria decision in selecting the most appropriate maintenance strategy for organizations with critical manufacturing requirements. Design/methodology/approach Maintenance strategy selection problems are multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problems which consist of many qualitative and quantitative characteristics. For solving MCDM problems, the ANP is highly recommended as it considers the interdependent influences among and between the various levels of decision attributes. In this research paper, the ANP method is used to select the optimum maintenance strategy in a cement industry in India. Findings The ANP method can be used as an effective tool for the evaluation of possible alternatives in maintenance strategy decision problems by considering the dependency among the strategic factors. Research limitations/implications As illustrated in this paper, ANP method can also be used in other industries for adopting the optimum maintenance strategy to enhance the business performance by decreasing the losses associated with equipment effectiveness. Practical implications The major contribution of this research is the successful development of the comprehensive ANP model for the cement plant. ANP model incorporates diversified variables of the cement plant supply chain and includes their interdependencies. The proposed ANP model in this paper, not only guides the decision makers in the selection of the best services but also enables them to visualize the impact of various criteria in the arrival of the final solution. Social implications The model can be extended to certain other manufacturing sectors as the future scope of research and may assist in obtaining a clear idea regarding the status of current maintenance strategies. It should be carried out with a larger number of firms in India focusing on small and medium firms to confirm these results and reinforce their applicability to these kinds of firms. Studies of such a nature would help in identifying successful organizational factors or successful maintenance practices that lead to superior performance. Originality/value This paper explores the value of implementing ANP as a decision making method in maintenance strategy, which is currently not a prevalent method.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javad Khazaei Pool ◽  
S. Mohammad Arabzad ◽  
Sobhan Asian ◽  
Milad Fahimi ◽  
Reza Verij Kazemi

Purpose This paper aims to provide a quantitative basis to analytically determine the ranking of the brand personality of Adidas, Asics, Nike, Puma and Saucony brands among Iranian customers via a conventional multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. Design/methodology/approach Data for determining the importance of evaluation criteria and ranking of brands are gathered by means of distributing questionnaires among a group of Iranian customers of sport shoes, as well as some industrial experts. The fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) was used to rank the brands with regard to dependencies between criteria and alternatives. Findings The results indicate that FANP is a capable method which provides invaluable insights for strategic marketing decisions in the sport product industry. Results show Adidas has the best performance in the sports shoe market compared to the other four brands. In this study, it was found that expertise sophistication was the most important criterion among Aaker’s five main criteria. Originality/value The value of this paper is applying FANP decision-making method for ranking sport shoe brands. This method has not been commonly used in the area of marketing, hence it is added to the pool of techniques used in ranking brands. In addition, evaluation and ranking of brands can be very useful for both academic research and practice. Researchers can benchmark the competences of each brand through evaluating them, and industrialists can extract the competitive advantages of the selected brands.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selim Zaim ◽  
Ali Turkyılmaz ◽  
Mehmet F. Acar ◽  
Umar Al‐Turki ◽  
Omer F. Demirel

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of two general purpose decision‐making techniques in selecting the most appropriate maintenance strategy for organizations with critical production requirements.Design/methodology/approachThe Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and the Analytical Network Process (ANP) are used for the selection of the most appropriate maintenance strategy in a local newspaper printing facility in Turkey.FindingsThe two methods were shown to be effective in choosing a strategy for maintaining the printing machines. The two methods resulted in almost the same results. Both methods take into account the specific requirements of the organization through its own available expertise.Practical implicationsThe techniques demonstrated in this paper can be used by all types of organizations for selecting and adopting maintenance strategies that have higher impact on maintenance performance and hence overall business productivity. The two methods are explained in a step‐by‐step approach for easier adaptation by practitioners in all types of organizations.Originality/valueThe value of the paper is in applying AHP and ANP decision‐making methodologies in maintenance strategy selection. These two methods are not very common in the area of maintenance, and hence add to the pool of techniques utilized in selecting maintenance strategies.


Author(s):  
Sanjay Sharma ◽  
Bhavin Shah

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to represent a unique combined Real time Delphi (RTD) – analytic network process (ANP) approach considering efficient decision making with practical validation. Design/methodology/approach – An ANP model encounters invisible relationship and interdependency among qualitative and quantitative criteria for assessment. RTD supports continuous assessment and improvement in team building, modeling, developing, implementing and validating the procedure. To illustrate practical validation of the model, the authors apply it in a manufacturing firm. A case illustrating the model, finds improved results and judgments followed by conclusion. Findings – A case illustrating the model, finds improved results and judgments. This model improves warehouse performance by integrating lean and people issues. The outcome results in an efficient decision making and consensus judgments. It also fosters high trust and coordination level among people in warehouse. Originality/value – Previous studies have assessed leanness either at enterprise or manufacturing level. As lean transformation and assessment both are continuous and long-term procedure, first the concept should apply to single function and should lead toward enterprise level. A web-based approach and multi criteria decision-making techniques like analytic hierarchy process, and ANP had been applied individually to measure leanness at enterprise level. Because of the warehouse contributing significantly to the total wastes and costs for an organization, such operations are considered presently.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Davoud Yadegari ◽  
Soroush Avakh Darestani

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide a model for evaluating, prioritizing and allocating orders to suppliers in the supply chain for mega-projects. Design/methodology/approach By using an integrated model (based on fuzzy analytic network process), suppliers are selected and the appropriate amounts are allocated to them in mega-projects. Initially, a hierarchical model of the research method was introduced. Then, the results on reliability and validity analysis of research measurement tools were presented. Finally, prioritization and allocation of orders to suppliers, with a case study of Iran Mall project, was carried out using Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and analytic network process (ANP). T-test was used to evaluate the research hypotheses. Findings The findings were examined against conventional numerical analysis techniques. Finally, implication and recommendations for future work were presented. Originality/value The originality of this work is about using multi-criteria decision-making techniques for evaluating suppliers in mega-projects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 536-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maedeh Rezaeisaray ◽  
Sadoullah Ebrahimnejad ◽  
Kaveh Khalili-Damghani

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the criteria weights of outsourcing and their key role in ranking outsourcing suppliers. Design/methodology/approach A new hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach merges three tools, namely, decision making trial and evaluation (DEMATLE), fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) and ordinal/cardinal data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. Afterwards, experts’ opinions were gathered from a Pipe and Fittings company. Finally, their opinions were incorporated in three-stage approach for outsourcing suppliers’ selection. Findings The findings of this study show that among the selective criteria for outsourcing, business development, focus on basic activities and order delays are the three most important criteria. Also, the proposed approach ranks suppliers to facilitate decision making for selection. Research limitations/implications The number of suppliers, selection criteria and the number of members of the respondents’ team have been identified as some of the limitations of the present study. Practical implications The study has significant and practical implications for the managers and for the organizations which have to choose top suppliers, particularly in the case of dealing with numerous and qualitative/quantitative criteria. Originality/value This paper proposed a new three-stage approach that incorporates outputs of previous as inputs of next stage to increasing results accuracy. Also, it showed that by incorporating results of FANP method into DEA model, key role of experts’ opinions as a qualitative and quantitative criteria can be caused by increasing flexibility of decision process.


Author(s):  
Roozbeh Hesamamiri ◽  
Mohammad Mahdavi Mazdeh ◽  
Atieh Bourouni

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model to help organizations select their knowledge-based strategy effectively. Knowledge management (KM) initiatives are often started with the selection of a strategy, which is a critical decision for a successful KM implementation. Design/methodology/approach – KM initiatives are often started with the selection of a strategy, which is a critical decision for a successful KM implementation. Thus, the aim of this paper is to develop a novel hybrid MCDM model to help organizations select their knowledge-based strategy effectively. Findings – Results illustrate that the proposed model is efficient to consider the complex interactions among criteria and provides a consistent decision with less pair-wise comparisons. Furthermore, a case study indicates that a “codification versus tacitness” strategy is preferred over other strategies considering nine main domain criteria. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is threefold: it addresses the gaps in KM literature on the effective and efficient assessment of KM strategy selection; it provides a comprehensive and systematic framework that combines analytic network process (ANP) and consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) to assess KM implementation strategy; and it illustrates a real-world study to exhibit the applicability of the proposed approach and the efficacy of the framework.


Author(s):  
Rohit Titiyal ◽  
Sujoy Bhattacharya ◽  
Jitesh J. Thakkar

Purpose E-fulfillment has a significant role to play within e-tailing, which provides products to a customer, comprising primarily of five components: website quality, customization strategy, distribution strategy, last mile delivery and return management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an e-fulfillment performance evaluation framework for an e-tailer, considering the different performance aspects of information systems (IS), marketing and operations for e-tailers. Design/methodology/approach Since quite a few performance aspects (i.e. IS, marketing system and operations) need to be factored in while evaluating the e-fulfillment performance, it may be considered as a complex multi-criteria decision-making problem. This study used decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) based analytic network process (DANP) to investigate the relationship between performance class and performance aspects, and calculated their weights. These designated weights of performance aspects help managers to find the important aspects needing improvement. The understanding of the interrelationship among the performance aspects enables managers to improve the efficiency of an e-tailing system. Findings This study provides the e-fulfillment performance evaluation framework to find the important aspects requiring improvement. The results of this study reveal that the important performance aspects of e-fulfillment performance are return policy, pickup method, innovativeness, assortment type, assortment width, trust (privacy and security) and promised delivery date. Practical implications This e-fulfillment performance evaluation could be used by an e-tailer to assess the e-fulfillment performance, and identify areas of improvement. Originality/value This study makes a contribution to the present body of knowledge by considering operations related performance aspects except the IS and marketing to evaluate the e-fulfillment performance.


Author(s):  
WEN-SHIUNG LEE

Real estate brokerage services have developed from individual stores into a chain-store system, and the location of those stores plays a key role in their operation. The purpose of this study is to define and quantify the factors that affect the selection of a site for real estate brokerage services. Mutual relationships between the factors and sub-factors for site selection and their relative weights are also discussed to provide a complete set of decision evaluation models, then how to reduce the gaps to achieve the aspiration level. This research uses a new hybrid Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model, combining the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), DEMATEL-based Analytic Network Process (DANP), and VIšekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (VIKOR) methods to solve these problems. The DEMATEL technique is used to build an influential network relations map, and DANP is expected to obtain the influential weights using the basic concept of Analytic Network Process (ANP), to solve the dependence and feedback problems in the real world. Then, the VIKOR method is used to integrate the performance gaps from criteria to dimensions and overall. As the result shows, there is an interactive and auto-feedback relationship among the four dimensions. Among the 11 evaluation criteria, the income and consumption level is the most important consideration for selection of the site. The number and density of population ranks second in this regard. This study uses VIKOR method for selection of the best site, among three potential sites. Site A is closest to the aspiration level. Site A is better in this regard than the other two sites. The study develops and provides a decision-making system for the site selection in the real estate brokerage services.


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