Performance optimization of an aluminum factory in economic crisis by integrated resilience engineering and mathematical programming

Abstract

Economic crisis have created certain challenges for large factories. This has intensified the need for being resilient in face of such disruption. During economic crisis, factories are faced with significant threats in their financial performance and survivorship. In this paper, the performance of an aluminum production plant has been investigated by integrated resilient engineering (IRE). For assessing IRE performance in economic crisis of the case of this study, first a questionnaire based on IRE factors in context of economic crisis is distributed among all expert managers and staff. Afterwards, the Cronbach’s alpha test is used to investigate the reliability of the questionnaire’s data. Then, best fitted data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to examine resilience engineering factors in context of economic crisis performance. To validate and verify the results, principle component analysis (PCA) and numerical taxonomy (NT) are utilized. It is found that self-organization, reporting culture, flexibility and learning have the greatest effect on performance. Also, it is shown that integrated resilient engineering is more efficient than resilient engineering. It is proven that the aluminum factory can be more resilient in cases of economic crisis by improving the above factors. The framework of this study may be used for all types of industrial units to identify the most important resilient factors in times of economic crisis. This is the first study that presents an integrated framework for performance optimization of an aluminum factory in economic crisis.