A New Model for Determining Weight Coefficients of Criteria in MCDM Models: Full Consistency Method (FUCOM)

A New Hybrid MCDM Model: Sustainable Supplier Selection in a Construction Company

Sustainable development is one of the most important preconditions for preserving resources and balanced functioning of a complete supply chain in different areas. Taking into account the complexity of sustainable development and a supply chain, different decisions have to be made day-to-day, requiring the consideration of different parameters. One of the most important decisions in a sustainable supply chain is the selection of a sustainable supplier and, often the applied methodology is multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). In this paper, a new hybrid MCDM model for evaluating and selecting suppliers in a sustainable supply chain for a construction company has been developed. The evaluation and selection of suppliers have been carried out on the basis of 21 criteria that belong to all aspects of sustainability. The determination of the weight values of criteria has been performed applying the full consistency method (FUCOM), while a new rough complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method has been developed to evaluate the alternatives. The rough Dombi aggregator has been used for averaging in group decision-making while evaluating the significance of criteria and assessing the alternatives. The obtained results have been checked and confirmed using a sensitivity analysis that implies a four-phase procedure. In the first phase, the change of criteria weight was performed, while, in the second phase, rough additive ratio assessment (ARAS), rough weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS), rough simple additive weighting (SAW), and rough multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) have been applied. The third phase involves changing the parameter ρ in the modeling of rough Dombi aggregator, and the fourth phase includes the calculation of Spearman’s correlation coefficient (SCC) that shows a high correlation of ranks.

Grey Regulatory Focus Theory Weighting Method for the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Problem in Evaluating University Reputation

Evaluating the reputation of higher institutions is important as a benchmark for the continuous development of universities. In multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), the estimation of the criteria weight is significant in improving the accuracy of the evaluation results. However, criteria weights assigned by decision makers (DMs) can be inaccurate when not measured from the orientations from which the DMs pursue their decision goals. This paper combines the grey system theory (GST) and regulatory focus theory (RFT) in estimating the weights of criteria by measuring the promotional and prevention focus orientations of the DMs and representing it as grey numbers. In this paper, we showed not all weight measurements from the DMs are symmetrical. In essence, to improve the accuracy of the MCDM weights, the grey regulatory focus theory (GRFT) weighting method is proposed to estimate the weights of an MCDM problem as well as aggregating the weights of the group DMs, thereby overcoming the limitation of a single orientation measurement. Furthermore, the GRFT weighting method is applied in ranking four universities in Xi’an city of China from a sample data from 1,200 students. The most reputable university is consistent with the other ranking indexes in the literature.

Comparative Evaluation of Sustainable Design Based on Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Best Worst Method (BWM) Methods: A Perspective on Household Furnishing Materials

For a few years, there has been an increasing consciousness to design structures that are concurrently economic and environmentally responsive. Eco-friendly inferences of building designs include lower energy consumption, reduction in CO2 emissions, assimilated energy in buildings and enhancement of indoor air quality. With the aim of fulfilling design objectives, designers normally encounter a situation in which the selection of the most appropriate material from a set of various material alternatives is essential. Sustainability has been developing as a new concept in all human activities to create a better balance between social, environmental and economic issues. Designing materials based on the sustainability concept is a key step to enable a better balance because there is no need to re-structure phases and procedures to make the system more efficient in comparison to previous models. Some of the most commonly used materials are household furnishing materials, which can be electrical devices, kitchen gears or general furnishing materials. The volume of production and consumption of these materials is considerable, therefore a newer sustainable plan for a better designed system is justifiable. In the literature, the application of multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) methods has been found to be very suitable for evaluating materials and developing general plans for them. This study contributes by applying two approaches based on MADM methods for weighting the criteria related to the sustainable design of household furnishing materials. Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Best Worst Method (BWM) are two specialized and new methods for weighting criteria with different approaches. This paper has not only investigated the weighting of important and related criteria for sustainable design but has also evaluated the similarities and differences between the considered weighting methods. A comparative study of SWARA and BWM methods has never been conducted to date. The results show that, except pairwise comparisons, SWARA and BWM are certainly similar and in some cases SWARA can be more accurate and effective.

A New Methodology for Improving Service Quality Measurement: Delphi-FUCOM-SERVQUAL Model

The daily requirements and needs imposed on the executors of logistics services imply the need for a higher level of quality. In this, the proper execution of all sustainability processes and activities plays an important role. In this paper, a new methodology for improving the measurement of the quality of the service consisting of three phases has been developed. The first phase is the application of the Delphi method to determine the quality dimension ranking. After that, in the second phase, using the FUCOM (full consistency method), we determined the weight coefficients of the quality dimensions. The third phase represents determining the level of quality using the SERVQUAL (service quality) model, or the difference between the established gaps. The new methodology considers the assessment of the quality dimensions of a large number of participants (customers), on the one hand, and experts’ assessments on the other hand. The methodology was verified through the research carried out in an express post company. After processing and analyzing the collected data, the Cronbach alpha coefficient for each dimension of the SERVQUAL model for determining the reliability of the response was calculated. To determine the validity of the results and the developed methodology, an extensive statistical analysis (ANOVA, Duncan, Signum, and chi square tests) was carried out. The integration of certain methods and models into the new methodology has demonstrated greater objectivity and more precise results in determining the level of quality of sustainability processes and activities.

Operational efficiency evaluation of Urban and rural residents’ basic pension insurance system based on the triangular fuzzy neutrosophic GRA method

At present, the basic pension insurance system for urban and rural residents in China has played a positive role in guaranteeing the basic life of the elderly in urban and rural areas. At present, the basic pension insurance system for urban and rural residents is not perfect, and there is still a great lag in the formulation of cross-system and cross-regional policies. There are differences in treatment between groups, between regions and between urban and rural areas. The coverage is not comprehensive enough and there are still some people who are not included in the basic protection system, etc. People urgently need a social pension insurance system that can provide reliable and sustainable protection in their old age. The operational efficiency evaluation of urban and rural residents’ basic pension insurance systems is viewed as the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM). In this paper, the triangular fuzzy neutrosophic numbers grey relational analysis (TFNN-GRA) method is built based on the traditional grey relational analysis (GRA) and triangular fuzzy neutrosophic sets (TFNSs). Finally, a numerical example for operational efficiency evaluation of urban and rural residents’ basic pension insurance systems has been given and some comparisons are used to illustrate advantages of 2TLNN-GRA method.