Location Selection of a Manufacturing Facility from the Perspective of Supply Chain Sustainability

A hybrid fuzzy-AHP-TOPSIS model for evaluation of manufacturing relocation decisions

Manufacturing relocation decisions are complex because they involve combinations of location modes like offshoring or reshoring, and governance modes like insourcing or outsourcing. Furthermore, the uncertainty involved in the decision-making process makes it challenging to reach a right-shoring decision. This study presents a hybrid fuzzy-AHP-TOPSIS model to support generic relocation decisions. Industry experts were involved in a pairwise comparison of the competitive priorities’ decision criteria. A meta-synthesis of empirical studies is used to generate theoretical relocation scenarios. The presented hybrid model is used to rank the relocation scenarios in order to identify the most pertinent alternative. The resiliency of the solution is presented through a sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the proposed hybrid model can simultaneously handle all the main relocation options involving governance modes. Based on the input data in this study, the competitive priorities criteria quality, time and cost are shown to have a strong impact, whereas the sustainability criterion has a weak impact on the choice of relocation option. The research presented in this paper contributes to the research field of manufacturing relocation by demonstrating the suitability of the hybrid fuzzy-AHP-TOPSIS model for relocation decisions and the resilience of the results. Furthermore, the research contributes to practice by providing managers with a generic relocation decision-support model that is capable of simultaneously handling and evaluating various relocation alternatives.

The Key Success Factors for Attracting Foreign Investment in the Post-Epidemic Era

The global economy has been hit by the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak, and foreign investment has been seen as one of the most important tools to boost the economy. However, in the highly uncertain post-epidemic era, determining how to attract foreign investment is the key to revitalizing the economy. What are the important factors for governments to attract investment, and how to improve them? This will be an important decision in the post-epidemic era. Therefore, this study develops a novel decision-making model to explore the key factors in attracting foreign investment. The model first uses fuzzy Delphi to explore the key factors of attracting foreign investment in the post-epidemic era, and then uses DEMATEL to construct the causal relationships among these factors. To overcome the uncertainty of various information sources and inconsistent messages from decision-makers, this study combined neutrosophic set theory to conduct quantitative analysis. The results of the study show that the model is suitable for analyzing the key factors of investment attraction in the post-epidemic period. Based on the results of the study, we also propose strategies that will help the relevant policy-making departments to understand the root causes of the problem and to formulate appropriate investment strategies in advance. In addition, the model is also used for comparative analysis, which reveals that this novel approach can integrate more incomplete information and present expert opinions in a more objective way.

Symmetric and Asymmetric Data in Solution Models

This Special Issue covers symmetric and asymmetric data that occur in real-life problems. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research to present engineering and economic problem solution models that deal with symmetry or asymmetry of different data types. The Special Issue gained interest in the research community and received many submissions. After rigorous scientific evaluation by editors and reviewers, seventeen papers were accepted and published. The authors proposed different solution models, mainly covering uncertain data in multi-criteria decision-making problems as complex tools to balance the symmetry between goals, risks, and constraints to cope with the complicated problems in engineering or management. Therefore, we invite researchers interested in the topics to read the papers provided in the Special Issue.