A fusion of decision-making method and neutrosophic linguistic considering multiplicative inverse matrix for coastal erosion problem

The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) has been used to solve numerous multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, where real numbers are utilised in defining linguistic variables. Although the DEMATEL has shown its success in solving many decision-making problems, researchers have not fully understood how the DEMATEL works on non-real-number linguistic variables. Recent discovery of single-valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs) can offer a new method to solve decision-making problems, where three memberships of SVNSs are used to define experts’ linguistic judgment. This paper aims to propose a novel MCDM method, where SVNSs and the DEMATEL are fully utilised. Different from the DEMATEL, which directly utilises real numbers, this proposed method introduces SVNSs to better deal with truth, indeterminacy, and falsity in solving MCDM problem. As an application of the proposed method, subcontractors’ selection problem is investigated using the proposed method, where four types of criteria are developed. A group of experts were invited to provide opinions and linguistic judgment regarding the degree of influence between criteria of subcontractors’ selection. The linguistic evaluations defined in SVNSs were computed using the eight-step procedures of the proposed method. Based on the degree of influence, the computational results successfully segregated all ten criteria into four types, in which two to three criteria are grouped in each type. The results also suggest that “Experience” and “Quality” are the most influential criteria in subcontractors’ selection. The segregation based on degree of influence would be greatly significant for the practical implementation of the subcontractors’ selection.

This study intends to employ the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to identify the influential factors contributed towards coastal erosion. This investigation specifically studies the coastal erosion in Setiu Wetlands coastal areas which located in Terengganu, Malaysia. The single valued neutrosophic set (SVNS) is used into the DEMATEL instead of crisp numbers. Twelve factors of coastal erosion with three dimensions were identified from literature review and consultation with group of experts. By considering the interrelationships among factors, DEMATEL is applied to acquire the importance and cause-effect relationships among the influential factors of coastal erosion. Obtained result reveals that coastal development gives a significant influence in contributing coastal erosion. The result from this study offers an insight for stakeholders to understand cause-effect relationships among coastal erosion factors in which can provide a precautious short or long term strategies.

PurposeThe Healthcare sector is one of the important sectors of the Service Industry. It is believed that in this sector, the customer server relationship is very critical, and even the slightest gap in the people quality may have a huge impact on the delivered service quality. Some of these enablers are doctors, nursing staff and support staff. Furthermore, the nonpeople quality enablers such as diagnostic services, facilities, hygiene levels and so on are also likely to impact the delivered service quality. It was also felt that the degree of impact each enabler has on the service quality could vary. Therefore there is a need for structured and deep analysis. The paper attempts to identify, analyze and prioritize the enablers that impact the delivered service quality.Design/methodology/approachThe enablers have been identified through literature review and inputs from experts in the healthcare fraternity. The authors have explored different decision-making tools such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP), analytic network process (ANP), stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis, Hybrid Model and DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) for the analysis of data in this paper. Based on the strengths of the approach and careful considerations by focus group discussions, DEMATEL was chosen as the best option. It is simple, unique, sparingly used in the healthcare sector, effective in prioritizing and gives meaningful insights on importance, cause and effect factors. DEMATEL approach converts the complex problem with interrelated factors into a clear structure that makes simple interrelationships among factors in the form of cause and effects digraph, and hence, the authors chose to use it. A case study in one of the hospitals has also been conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the developed index. The case study very strongly validates the developed index.FindingsThis research paper has found that there are people quality enablers such as the doctor, nursing staff, support staff and nonpeople quality enablers such as facilities, diagnostic services and hygiene levels maintenance, which impact the delivered service quality. It also concludes that the delivered service quality depends not only on the quality but also on the availability of these enablers. The inputs received from the experts have been run through the DEMATEL methodology and importance computed for each. The top five priority enablers are Quality of Doctor, Availability of Doctor, Quality of Support Staff, Quality of Nursing Staff and Availability of Support Staff.Research limitations/implicationsThe weights of the enablers have been obtained using the DEMATEL tool. These weights have been calculated using the inputs from 22 experts, which meets the statistical requirement (Skulmoski, 2007). However, a larger group of experts can be reached, and based on the inputs received from them, the tool can be revalidated for repeatability and reproducibility. Using Fuzzy DEMATEL can also be explored for further analysis.Practical implicationsThe proposed framework to assess the service quality level of a healthcare organization is based on a sound approach of DEMATEL. The service index arrived, thereafter, can be used to rate the delivered service quality by any healthcare organization. It can be used to compare the similar type of healthcare organizations across locations. This Index can facilitate improvements in the healthcare organization through internal and external benchmarking. It also helps the organization to know the gaps, understand the root cause, improve upon them and become the best in class. This Index uses the inputs from the end customers to calculate the rating, which makes it more reliable and accurate. The overall scores obtained from the Index can provide the ranking to the healthcare providing organizations and options to customers to choose from best. The service quality index can be used by an organization to continuously monitor their delivered service quality scores and improve them to become the best in class. The research paper highlights the significant role played by the people quality and its strong impact/contribution on the delivered service quality. Hence, it is believed that it will encourage the healthcare organizations to prioritize the improvement and upgrade of the people quality over the nonpeople quality aspect.Originality/valuePutting people and nonpeople quality enablers in one single model and assigning weights to them using the DEMATEL approach is a new application in healthcare. Developing an Index to measure the delivered service quality in the healthcare sector is also different and new.

Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is considered as an effective method for the identification of cause-effect chain components of a complex system. It deals with evaluating interdependent relationships among factors and finding the critical ones through a visual structural model. Over the recent decade, a large number of studies have been done on the application of DEMATEL and many different variants have been put forward in the literature. The objective of this study is to review systematically the methodologies and applications of the DEMATEL technique. We reviewed a total of 346 papers published from 2006 to 2016 in the international journals. According to the approaches used, these publications are grouped into five categories: classical DEMATEL, fuzzy DEMATEL, grey DEMATEL, analytical network process- (ANP-) DEMATEL, and other DEMATEL. All papers with respect to each category are summarized and analyzed, pointing out their implementing procedures, real applications, and crucial findings. This systematic and comprehensive review holds valuable insights for researchers and practitioners into using the DEMATEL in terms of indicating current research trends and potential directions for further research.

Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is considered as an effective method for the identification of cause-effect chain components of a complex system. It deals with evaluating interdependent relationships among factors and finding the critical ones through a visual structural model. Over the recent decade, a large number of studies have been done on the application of DEMATEL and many different variants have been put forward in the literature. The objective of this study is to review systematically the methodologies and applications of the DEMATEL technique. We reviewed a total of 346 papers published from 2006 to 2016 in the international journals. According to the approaches used, these publications are grouped into five categories: classical DEMATEL, fuzzy DEMATEL, grey DEMATEL, analytical network process- (ANP-) DEMATEL, and other DEMATEL. All papers with respect to each category are summarized and analyzed, pointing out their implementing procedures, real applications, and crucial findings. This systematic and comprehensive review holds valuable insights for researchers and practitioners into using the DEMATEL in terms of indicating current research trends and potential directions for further research.

The choice of supplier in the supply chain network is a very important and quick issue for decision makers. When we work in line with these requirements, a multi-criteria decision support system focusing on supplier importance and ordering is being established. The fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy DEMATEL methods are used in the decision support system. With Fuzzy DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) method, the criterias required for supplier selection are listed according to the values they affect the system and affect the system. By using the fuzzy DEMATEL method, the criterion of the criterion is defined and the criterion which the decision maker should consider most is determined. Suppliers are ranked for supplier selection through comparison matrices using the fuzzy AHP method. All these methods are applied with the data obtained through the experts and their results are shown. At the last stage of the work, an interface is created by which all these methods can be used, and a visual program, which is a decision support system and a decision support system, is included.

Sustainable carbon-dioxide storage assessment in geological media using modified Pythagorean fuzzy VIKOR and DEMATEL approach

This paper develops a new the weakest t-norm (T <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ω</inf> ) fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to evaluate green supply chain management (GSCM). Traditional DEMATEL is a popular method for making decision. In order to apply a realistic environment the fuzzy DEMATEL had to be developed for analyzing expert judgments with preferences, which are often unclear and ambiguous. The fuzzy DEMATEL usually adopts α-cut arithmetic operations to calculate results. However, general fuzzy DEMATEL model has not really handled fuzzy cause and effect relationships due to the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness of the a-cut arithmetic. In the numerical example, using novel T <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ω</inf> fuzzy DEMATEL find out real cause and effect relationships with fuzzy bounds among criteria of GSCM. The T <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ω</inf> fuzzy DEMATEL can provide more credible information/results and analysis of across quadrants to evaluate cause and effected relationships, because the decision-maker usually wants to accurately grasp uncertain influential factors in the GSCM.

Knowledge management (KM) is a major enabler of supply chain (SC) management. The performance of KM in SC may be affected by various different factors and it is always difficult for the practitioners to improve all aspects at the same time. This study presents a favorable method combining fuzzy set theory and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to identify critical factors for successful KM implementations in SC. Considering the interdependence among factors, this fuzzy DEMATEL method forms a structural model and then visualizes the causal relationships among factors through a cause-effect relationship diagram. Then according to the results of proposed method, critical success factor (CSF) of KM in SC is figured out. Finally, four CSFs are identified out of 12 influencing factors, which will helps to improve effectiveness and efficiency of KM in SC.

The choice of supplier in the supply chain network is a very important and quick issue for decision makers. When we work in line with these requirements, a multi-criteria decision support system focusing on supplier importance and ordering is being established. The fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy DEMATEL methods are used in the decision support system. With Fuzzy DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) method, the criterias required for supplier selection are listed according to the values they affect the system and affect the system. By using the fuzzy DEMATEL method, the criterion of the criterion is defined and the criterion which the decision maker should consider most is determined. Suppliers are ranked for supplier selection through comparison matrices using the fuzzy AHP method. All these methods are applied with the data obtained through the experts and their results are shown. At the last stage of the work, an interface is created by which all these methods can be used, and a visual program, which is a decision support system and a decision support system, is included.

A hybrid fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and multi-criteria decision-making approach for successful implementation of supply chain collaboration strategies

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to predict and minimize the risks of oil, gas and petrochemical projects. Besides, reducing the likelihood of occurrence and minimizing risks impact on the projects to reduce the probable costs and improve the economic situation is another purpose of this paper.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides a fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) – a technique that assist to solve decision-making problems – and IP (Impact & Probability) table methods to identify and analyze critical risks in energy projects, and then fuzzy Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) in order to predict the probability of each level of risk for more efficient risk management in projects. Furthermore, in this paper, the fuzzy BLR (FBLR) is optimized such that the probability of a high level of risk for the implementation of the project has been minimized using meta-heuristic algorithm.FindingsThe results from the point of view of experts show that combination of fuzzy DEMATEL with FBLR approach as well as using SA algorithm, in order to optimize the high level of risks, can provide a smart approach to managing risks with more success.Practical implicationsThe application of the proposed method is illustrated via a real data set from energy projects.Originality/valueWe propose combined fuzzy DEMATEL and FBLR methods to predict and optimize the risks of the energy projects, which is the innovation of this paper.

The plastic industry is considered one of the most dynamic industries with the highest competitive projection in the country [1]. Thanks to the advances of this industry, new products have been developed with various applications at industrial, commercial, service levels, and society’s daily lives. Plastics are highly demanded their chemical and physical properties, versatility, and low cost. However, many challenges are arising from the growth in consumption and the dynamics of the plastics industry, such as the prices of raw materials, substitute products of plastic, the demands of consumers, government, and other interested parties with the impact of plastics on the environment during the different stages of their life cycle. Concerning the life cycle of the plastic products is especially determinant the post-consumption, where plastic waste presents a low percentage of recycling and a prolonged period of degradation, being a product questioned for its negative environmental implications. In this sense, companies in the sector must implement different strategies and tools to evaluate their environmental performance, considering the product life cycle. In the world, there are various government regulations for the responsible use of plastics. International methodologies focused on sustainable environmental management in the products, processes, and organizational level have also been developed, such as the product life cycle approach, reverse logistics, and the ISO 45001 standard. However, it is necessary to create objective and analytical methodologies for evaluating environmental management and reverse logistics that provide solutions for the plastic industry, helping companies comply with applicable legal requirements and standards, and supporting decision-making processes. Concerning the decision-making is a complex process given the complexity of the sector and the multiple criteria taken into account when evaluating and establishing improvement strategies. In the literature review, we found several studies with the application of a multicriteria combined approach focused on selecting plastic recycling methods, location of plastic processing centers, eco-design of plastic products, and selection of suppliers. Despite these considerations, the research-oriented on applying integrated methodologies for evaluating performance in the environmental management and reverse logistics in the plastic industry, under multiple criteria and uncertainty, are mostly limited and with the exciting potential of development. Therefore, this document presents a hybrid methodology for evaluating the performance in the environmental management and reverse logistics in the plastic industry by applying two techniques of Multi-criteria Decision Methods (MCDM) uses in environments under uncertainly. First, the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) is applied to estimate the initial relative weights of criteria and sub-criteria. The fuzzy set theory is incorporated to represent the uncertainty in the judgments of decision-makers. Then, the Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) was used for evaluating the interdependences between criteria and sub-criteria. FAHP and DEMATEL are later combined for calculating the final criteria and sub-criteria weights under vagueness and interdependence. Subsequently, the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was used to rank the companies of the plastic industry. Finally, we detect improvement opportunities for the companies of the plastic sector.

PurposeChina is a critical factor for constructing an all-round well-off society. Infrastructure construction, especially high-grade highways, in the western area is an essential component of the strategy for large-scale development of west China. It is crucial to evaluate investment projects for high-grade highways and select the best one. Testing investment projects and selecting the best one can be recognized as a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. In this process, decision-makers (DMs) usually face with uncertain information because of complicated decision environment or their limited knowledge.Design/methodology/approachA new Evaluation based on the Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) for PFS based on the DEMATEL is proposed: The authors offer a new score function and prove some properties for the score function. They put forward a novel Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method for PFS to analyze the relations of criteria and get criteria weights. Considering the bounded rationality of DM, the authors propose a new EDAS method for PFS based on prospect theory. They apply their proposed approach to a western city's actual case in selecting a suitable project for building a high-grade highway.FindingsBy comparison, the authors can observe that our method has some traits: (1) considering bounded rationality of DM; (2) fewer computation; (3) having the ability to obtain the relation of criteria and finding the critical factor in the decision system.Originality/valueIn this paper, the authors propose a new EDAS method for PFS based on the DEMATEL technique. They transform PFS into crisp numbers by their proposed new score function for PFN to make the decision process more convenient. Then, the authors use the DEMATEL method to obtain the relationship between criteria and criteria weights. Furthermore, they propose a new EDAS method for PFS based on DEMATEL to reduce the computational complexity. Finally, they apply our method to a real case and compare our method with two traditional methods.

Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is one of the multicriteria decision-making methods based on asymmetric linguistic comparison matrices that has received a great deal of attention, and it is a widely used method in various fields. One of the drawbacks of DEMATEL is a convergence problem that may occur when the infinite sum of normalized influences does not converge. Based on the observations of some examples, the new concept of DEMATEL, the DEMATEL of a finite sum of influences (FSI DEMATEL), is proposed. Instead of an infinite sum, a finite sum of influences is used in FSI DEMATEL so that the convergence problem is avoided. The advantage is that FSI DEMATEL can handle more decision-making problems than the DEMATEL. It can also be used for fuzzy evaluations. FSI DEMATEL can be used as the multicriteria decision-making method to evaluate the relationships between the factors in many different fields.