scholarly journals A new framework for warehouse assessment using a Genetic-Algorithm driven analytic network process

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0256999
Author(s):  
Wafa’ H. AlAlaween ◽  
Abdallah H. AlAlawin ◽  
Mahdi Mahfouf ◽  
Omar H. Abdallah ◽  
‎Mohammad A. Shbool ◽  
...  

A novel way of integrating the genetic algorithm (GA) and the analytic network process (ANP) is presented in this paper in order to develop a new warehouse assessment scheme, which is developed through various stages. First, we define the main criteria that influence a warehouse performance. The proposed algorithm that integrates the GA with the ANP is then utilized to determine the relative importance values of the defined criteria and sub-criteria by considering the interrelationships among them, and assign strength values for such interrelationships. Such an algorithm is also employed to linguistically present the relative importance and the strength of the interrelationships in a way that can circumvent the use of pairwise comparisons. Finally, the audit checklist that consists of questions related to the criteria is integrated with the proposed algorithm for the development of the warehouse assessment scheme. Validated on 45 warehouses, the proposed scheme has been shown to be able to identify the warehouse competitive advantages and the areas where more improvements can be achieved.

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1673
Author(s):  
Chih-chao Chung ◽  
Chun-Chun Tung ◽  
Shi-Jer Lou

The purpose of this study is to explore the ability indices of VR (virtual reality) technology when it is applied to assist the teaching of a welding practice course, develop a VR welding course as the basis of course planning and teaching design, and implement experimental teaching to verify its effectiveness. On the basis of a literature review and focus group interviews, initial ability indices of a VR welding course were proposed. Then, 15 experts from VR- and welding-related specialties were invited to form a consulting team to determine “the ability indices of the VR welding course” according to the results of a Fuzzy Delphi expert questionnaire. Moreover, the results of an ANP (Analytic Network Process) expert questionnaire were used to understand the relative importance of the ability indices of the VR welding course, as well as the relative feasibility of VR-assisted welding teaching, in order to develop a “VR welding course”, in which 34 first-grade students of the welding practice course were taken as the research objects during the implementation of experimental teaching. The qualitative research and analysis results are as follows: (1) the VR welding course includes 8 ability indices and 30 evaluation indices; (2) the item with the highest feasibility in VR-assisted welding teaching is “welding construction”, followed by “map reading and drawing”; (3) best feasibility of VR technology “Interaction” in assisting welding teaching; (4) the relative importance of the ability indices of the VR welding course is the greatest for “welding construction”, followed by “welding inspection”; (5) the VR welding course students express significant positive responses to the learning of ability indices and ability demonstration; (6) the majority of students express significant positive learning satisfaction with VR-assisted welding course teaching. This study puts forward a set of rigorous models for the construction of ability indices for a VR course and course development. It can provide a reference for introducing VR-assisted teaching to related welding courses that are run by universities of science and technology in Taiwan. Furthermore, such VR courses can offer students a safe, diversified, and efficient learning environment.


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.


Author(s):  
Luis G Vargas ◽  
Amos N. Guiora ◽  
Marcel C. Minutolo

Balancing public good with individual rights is a difficult task; gun policies attempt to do just this. To ensure public safety, local, state, and federal agencies piece together policies that each entity believes will meet the needs of public welfare. When legislating new gun policies, the impact the policies have on gun owners are perceived as a zero-sum game; some groups are perceived to gain while others think they are losing, but the reality is much more nuanced.    The reason the impact of these policies on all lawful gun owners has been considered a zero-sum game is largely because to date there has been no research measuring the impact. Further, there have been no attempts to quantify the impact that the policies have on lawful gun owners. The sole argument that has been made is about constitutionality.   In this paper, we develop an approach based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The approach allows us to develop criteria for evaluating the impact of these policies on lawful gun owners and generate priorities for the criteria from pairwise comparisons. Criteria are compared in pairs, thus the term pairwise comparisons.  This allows us to score, as with a scorecard model, gun policies for various types of gun owners with respect to the criteria according to the Benefits, Opportunities, Costs, and Risks, thereby determining the impact of each policy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 467-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.-S. Lee

Leisure farms in Taiwan are currently undergoing a fast development. The utilization of distinctive strategies to create successful operational competitiveness is becoming the guiding policy of enterprises for their future development. This study adopts the value chain perspective to develop criteria for different dimensions and to develop a strategic hierarchical structure by using the fuzzy Delphi method. Through the FANP (Fuzzy Analytic Network Process) method, this study discovers the critical factors influencing the competitive advantages of leisure farms in Taiwan: (1) the uniqueness of the landscape and ecological resources, (2) the richness of agricultural resources, (3) the attractiveness of the landscape and ecological resources, (4) service quality, (5) the convenience of the accommodation, (6) the provision of education and guiding services, and the like. Finally, according to the research results of the study, the authors make suggestions on the corresponding developmental strategies of leisure farms, including (1) creating the characteristics of a leisure farm through the development and utilization of the farm’s internal and surrounding environmental resources and (2) perceiving the tourists’ needs and improving the service quality. With the suggestions made and the reference data concluded in this study, the authors expect to enhance effectively the current competitive advantages of leisure farms.  


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazim Abdullah ◽  
Nurul Atiqah Abd Rahman

Selecting the best wastewater treatment (WWT) technology requires a thorough qualitative and quantitative evaluation of multi-dependence criteria. A network based method is one of the many possible techniques that able to handle multi-dependence criteria in the selection. This paper proposes relative importance weights of alternatives in selecting the WWT technology using the analytic network process (ANP) in Terengganu Malaysia. The ANP is applied to establish the relative weights of alternatives based on criteria and sub-criteria that available in the WWT technology selection. Two faculty members attached to a public university and an engineer in Malaysian government agency were interviewed to provide evaluation within the framework of ANP. Inner dependence and outer dependence analysis of ANP are fully utilised to establish relative importance weights of alternatives. The experiment result reveals that the relative importance weights of the three alternatives are 0.3074, 0.2795 and 0.2447. The alternative ‘Composting’ has decided as the most suitable technology in WWT which provides the highest relative importance weight among all the three alternatives. The results would be a great significance for the practical implementation of the WWT technology selection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (03) ◽  
pp. 911-939 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Bottani ◽  
Piera Centobelli ◽  
Teresa Murino ◽  
Ehsan Shekarian

This paper presents an original integrated procedure to evaluate and select suppliers for purchasing decisions. The procedure exploits the quality function deployment approach to define the suppliers’ characteristics, coupled with the analytic network process to capture the interrelations among the selection criteria and integrated with a benefits, opportunities, costs and risks (BOCR) analysis. As such, the proposed approach is more structured than the existing methods for supplier selection; in particular, it allows simultaneously to take into account the relevant criteria for supplier selection, to capture the situation in which the decision criteria are somehow dependent on one another and to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of the selection process. By using the proposed approach, companies can derive useful information to guide their partner selection process. An extensive case study is reported to show the application of the model to a selection process of a real Italian company. The application shows that the model is effective in identifying the most suitable supplier; moreover, a detailed sensitivity analysis highlights that the results of the ranking are very robust against possible changes in the relative importance of the BOCR perspectives.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingzheng Ren ◽  
Marie Lützen

Shipping, which is one of the most important transport modes, plays a significant role in international trade, but unfortunately, it also contributes significantly to global emissions. The present study proposes a generic method for establishing a system of evaluation criteria for assessing the greenness of shipping. A system of evaluation criteria that consists of multiple influence factors has been established, and an Analytic Network Process has been used to determine the relative importance of the influential factors and to consider their interdependences and interactions. The results can help stakeholders draft strategic measures that enhance the greenness of the shipping activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Ghofar ◽  
Achmad Firdaus ◽  
Ronald Rulindo

This study aims to analyze the criteria for investing in Hajj funds and alternative investments that provide benefits to Muslims so that they have an impact on economic growth. By using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach, alternative investments offered are Infrastructure, Property, Financial Sector, and Real Sector. Data were collected using a questionnaire consisting of pairwise comparisons between groups and their assessment indicators. A total of 7 (seven) expert speakers (experts) who became respondents successfully collected and processed using the ANP method. The results showed that investment in infrastructure and the real sector provides benefits to Muslims economically, so as to improve the welfare of Muslims which in turn can encourage economic growth. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-135
Author(s):  
Wei-Lun Chang

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative importance of the five types of sensory experience in restaurants and the differences between experts and customers. Design/methodology/approach Analytic network process was used to select the critical factors for the five types of sensory experiences. Expert and consumer questionnaires were compared to examine the differences between expert opinions and customer awareness. Findings Restaurants consider taste and smell to be important senses, whereas hearing was considered to be the least important. Originality/value Experts paid more attention to criteria and sub-criteria that resonated with consumers’ memories and emotions. Consumers paid more attention to intuitively obtaining emotional experiences during each purchase.


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