Highest Priority Level Research Articles

Prioritas Penentuan Peningkatan Kualitas Lingkungan Permukiman Kumuh yang Berkelanjutan

The enhancement of environmental quality for urban settlement in Palembang is expected to be sustainable due to the increase number of slum areas and the limited funding allocation for the infrastructure establishment. This study aimed to determine priority scale of activities and locations according to three pillars of sustainable development which can alleviate slum areas i.e. physical environment, social and economic aspects by involving all stakeholders. This research will provide information for the local government to determine priority activities and locations for settlement improvement by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The study revealed that the main factor to improve the environmental quality for settlement in 29 Ilir sub-district was the infrastructure development with urgency level reaching 46.7%. Meanwhile, the urgency level of social activity factor was approximately 31.2% followed by the economic development factor which was the lowest level by 22.1%. However, the highest priority level from those activity factors was household waste management by 100%, while other priority activities that should be done consecutively were waste infrastructure (93.5%), community service activities (83,6%), environmental drainage (66.2%), sanitation (66.1%), business capital loans (63%), training and entrepreneurship (61%), and compensation for the poor (57,9 %). The aforementioned activities were conducted in priority locations in which environmental quality was relatively poor.

Analytical Hierarchy Process for Regional Development Priority in Maluku Province, Indonesia

Maluku is one of the provinces of the eastern part of Indonesia, consisting of 11 regencies. The Maluku branch of Statistics Indonesia reported in 2018 that in 2013–2018 the number of poor people in Maluku's rural areas increased by 1,970. Concurrently, the number of poor people in urban areas decreased by around 6,070 people. This fact showed that development in Maluku Province hadn't been implemented effectively and equally. This study aimed to determine the development priority in Maluku Province using the Analytical Hierarchy Process method. The determination of priorities was based on three aspects in the human development index concept, namely education, health, and economy. Data from Statistics Indonesia on life expectancy, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and per capita expenditure were the indicators were used as the indicators in this study. The results showed that there were 10 regencies with a high level of priority, with the exception being Ambon City, which had a low-level priority. Classification of regencies showed that there was a disparity between them. These findings can help to inform future development designs in Maluku Province.

An Expert Delphi study to derive a tool for mental health triage in emergency departments

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate and collate the opinions of experts regarding the triage of patients in mental health crisis presenting to EDs.DesignA three-round e-Delphi study was conducted between November...

Achieving Tiered Model Quality in 3D Structure from Motion Models Using a Multi-Scale View-Planning Algorithm for Automated Targeted Inspection.

This study presents a novel multi-scale view-planning algorithm for automated targeted inspection using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). In industrial inspection, it is important to collect the most relevant data to keep processing demands, both human and computational, to a minimum. This study investigates the viability of automated targeted multi-scale image acquisition for Structure from Motion (SfM)-based infrastructure modeling. A traditional view-planning approach for SfM is extended to a multi-scale approach, planning for targeted regions of high, medium, and low priority. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can traverse the entire aerial space and facilitates collection of an optimized set of views, both close to and far away from areas of interest. The test case for field validation is the Tibble Fork Dam in Utah. Using the targeted multi-scale flight planning, a UAV automatically flies a tiered inspection using less than 25% of the number of photos needed to model the entire dam at high-priority level. This results in approximately 75% reduced flight time and model processing load, while still maintaining high model accuracy where needed. Models display stepped improvement in visual clarity and SfM reconstruction integrity by priority level, with the higher priority regions more accurately modeling smaller and finer features. A resolution map of the final tiered model is included. While this study focuses on multi-scale view planning for optical sensors, the methods potentially extend to other remote sensors, such as aerial LiDAR.

Research Outcomes of Implementing CEASE: An Innovative, Nurse-Driven, Evidence-Based, Patient-Customized Monitoring Bundle to Decrease Alarm Fatigue in the Intensive Care Unit/Step-down Unit.

The research literature is replete with evidence that alarm fatigue is a real phenomenon in the clinical practice environment and can lead to desensitization of the need to respond among nursing staff. A few studies attest to the effectiveness of incorporating parts of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses recommended nursing practices for alarm management. No studies could be found measuring the effectiveness of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses recommendations in their entirety or the effectiveness of a nursing-driven, evidence-based, patient-customized monitoring bundle. The purpose of this study was to describe the effect of implementing CEASE, a nurse-driven, evidence-based, patient-customized monitoring bundle on alarm fatigue. CEASE is an acronym for Communication, Electrodes (daily changes), Appropriateness (evaluation), Setup alarm parameters (patient customization), and Education (ongoing). (1) In a 36-bed intensive care unit/step-down unit (ICU/SDU) with continuous hemodynamic and respiratory monitoring, does application of an evidence-based, patient-customized monitoring bundle compared with existing monitoring practice lead to less alarm fatigue as measured by the number of hemodynamic and respiratory monitoring alarms? (2) In a 36-bed ICU/SDU with continuous hemodynamic and respiratory monitoring, does application of an evidence-based, patient-customized monitoring bundle compared with existing monitoring practice lead to less alarm fatigue as measured by duration of alarms? and (3) In a 36-bed ICU/SDU with continuous hemodynamic and respiratory monitoring, does application of an evidence-based, patient-customized monitoring bundle compared with existing monitoring practice lead to less alarm fatigue as measured by nurse perception? This was an institutional review board approved exploratory, nonrandomized, pretest and posttest, 1-group, quasi-experimental study, without-comparators design describing difference in pretest and posttest measures following CEASE Bundle implementation. The study was conducted over a 6-month period. Convenience sample of 74 registered nurses staffing a 36-bed ICU/SDU using the CEASE Bundle participated. Preimplementation/postimplementation number of alarms and alarm duration time for a 30-day period were downloaded from the monitoring system and compared. Nurses completed an electronic 36-item Clinical Alarms Survey provided by the Healthcare Technology Foundation: 35 before implementation and 18 after implementation. Researchers measured CEASE alarm bundle adherence. χ and t-tests determined statistical significance. Total number of monitoring alarms decreased 31% from 52 880 to 36 780 after CEASE Bundle implementation. Low-priority Level 1 alarms duration time significantly decreased 23 seconds (t = 1.994, P = .045). Level 2 duration time did not change. High-priority Level 3 alarms duration time significantly increased to 246 seconds (t = 4.432, P < .0001). CEASE alarm bundle adherence significantly improved to 22.4% (χ = 5.068, P = .0244). Nurses perceived a significant decrease in nuisance alarm occurrence (68% to 44%) postimplementation (χ = 3.243, P = .0417). No adverse patient events occurred. Decreased total number of monitoring alarms improved nurse perception of alarm fatigue. Continued monitoring of CEASE Bundle adherence by nursing staff is required. Longer high-priority Level 3 alarms duration suggests need for further research.

A GEOSPATIAL- STATISTICAL APPROACH TO ALIENATE PRIORITY AREA OF UPPER WATERSHED OF RIVER SUBARNAREKHA USING MORPHOMETRIC ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

Micro-watershed planning and management play an important role in addressing the issues and challenges of water scarcity of a region. The assessment of hydrological framework using morphometric calculation and GIS technology is a recognized tool for carrying out planning activities for the watershed. The uncertainties associated with the earlier work of watershed prioritization can be easily addressed with new emerging geospatial-statistical correlation techniques. A sum weightages methodology is applied on the upper watershed of river Subarnarekha in the state of Jharkhand, India, for identification of critical subwatershed, a priority level ranking and zonation mapping of each individual subwatershed is developed using the morphometric calculation coupled with GIS tools. This approach helps in identification and bifurcation of subwatershed with three level of priority, i.e, Low, Medium, High. The result reveals that 5.8 % of subwatershed lies in high priority zone that signifies the area as critical and susceptible zones of soil erosion, which requires immediate attention from planners and policymakers. The high-level priority region should be considered for soil, water, and land conservation work. This approach of prioritization techniques can further be extended to another critical watershed of India for better decision support system and planning.

An Efficient Partially Overlapping Channels Assignment for Smart Grid IoT With Differentiated QoS

In smart grid (SG), internet of things (IoT) has drawn much attention around the years due to increased volume of traffic. Various types of electrical devices in SG demand a differentiated quality of service (QoS). However, the spectrum resource for SG wireless communication is quite limited. The network performance and spectrum utilization in a SG-IoT network can be greatly enhanced by adopting wireless mesh networks (WMNs) with multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) and partially overlapping channels (POCs). In this paper, a game-based efficient POCs assignment algorithm is proposed to satisfy the diverse QoS and improve the spectrum utilization efficiency. The utility function in the proposed game model is taken both of the differentiated QoS and interference into consideration to optimize the network capacity. Then Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the game model is analyzed, and a variable learning step algorithm (VLSCA) is designed to improve its convergence speed. In the simulations, seven SG application services divided into four priority levels are considered to compare with the other two typical channel assignment algorithms. The results show that our algorithm has better performance to ensure a higher priority level traffic with lower end-to-end delays and packet loss ratios.

ІНСТИТУТИ І ЕКОНОМІЧНІ МЕХАНІЗМИ СТАБІЛЬНОСТІ ТА РОЗВИТКУ СУСПІЛЬСТВА

озглянуто інститути, організації, економічні механізми та інструменти суспільної стабільності й розвитку, їх всебічний взаємозв’язок і взаємодоповнюваність. Показано, що в економіці України така система функціонує за наявності широкого масиву обмежень і ризиків ендогенного та екзогенного характеру. Підкреслюється значущість економічної стабільності як важливого і необхідного ресурсу для суспільного розвитку.До інститутів стабільності належать: верховенство права; безпека прав власності; законність і правопорядок; захист прав споживачів; підтримка свободи контрактів; права інтелектуальної власності; захист трудових прав. Інститути розвитку – це, насамперед, розвиток конкуренції, стимулювання інновацій і високих технологій, спонукання бізнесу до модернізації та технічного переозброєння, безпека приватних інвестицій.Поєднано аналіз інститутів і аналіз механізмів. Центральне значення надається змісту відповідних економічних механізмів, суб’єктам, які приводять ці механізми у дію, та мотивам (стимулам), якими ці суб’єкти керуються у своїй діяльності. Розкрито основні риси так званого «механізму імітації (ілюзії) суспільного розвитку», типового для багатьох країн, що розвиваються. Обгрунтовано теоретико-методологічну платформу для забезпечення високого рівня суспільної стабільності та пріоритету розвитку в Україні.

Staff Awareness, Attitudes, and Skills toward Radio Frequency Identification Adoption in Medical Laboratories

Background and purpose: Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID) is a beneficial tool in providing diagnostic and treatment services in the healthcare domain.This study aims to investigate awareness, attitudes, and skills of medical private and public laboratory the staff in implementing RFID.Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted based on the descriptive-applied approach in private and public medical laboratories in Shiraz in 2017. The population size of this study included all laboratories’ staff that involved technicians, technologists, and technical supervisors. 147 staffs were then assigned through census. Data was collected using a researcher-made checklist, and its validity and reliability were assessed and approved. The collected data was then analysed in a significance level of 0.05 using descriptive statistics and t-test, ANOVA ,and Pearson correlation test in SPSS23.Results: Findings showed that the mean awareness, attitude and skill scores of participants were 3.13±0.91, 4.09 ± 0.38 and 2.39±0.65, respectively. In this regard, the staff awareness and attitude scores labelled good, and their skill score labelled medium. Also, almost all participants had a positive attitude toward executing RFID, and there was documented a significant direct association between the staff knowledge, attitudes, and skills dimensions. Conclusion: Considering the inchoate RFID technology and its limited usage, the staff RFID skills needed improvement. Therefore, the results suggested that the necessary training followed by implementing RFID technology should have received a high-level priority on policymakers’ agenda.

Multicriteria Evaluation for Protected Area Definition Aiming at Water Quality Improvement

ABSTRACT This study aimed to define potential areas for forest conservation to improve water quality, using Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE); and to verify differences between results from a multidisciplinary group of experts. We worked with the Pirapora River Watershed, Piedade/SP. The participatory method was used to identify the criteria and their relative importance. Priority maps representing expert opinion were elaborated, as well as a map with average weight values. We compared the differences between the criteria weight values and the maps of priority areas. The maps proposed distinct spatialization of priority areas, supporting the understanding of criteria that influence the decision-making process. The highest priority level was associated with areas near to springs, forest patches, and with the highest slope values. We concluded that the MCE is an efficient method to identify priority areas; however, the selection of an expert group is an essential step to generate representative analyses.

İstanbul’un Esenler İlçesinde yer alan Betonarme Yapıların Sismik Hasar Görebilirliğinin Değerlendirilmesi

Istanbul is one of the largest cities of Turkey which is located on the regions where there is high seismic activities. Recent studies performed on mid-rise reinforced concrete (RC) structures showed that majority of the existing building stock does not conform to current seismic code requirements and they can be evaluated as vulnerable structures. The seismic performance evaluation of an existing buildings can be conducted by using nonlinear procedures stated in Turkish Earthquake Code (TEC-07). According to the code, an existing building completing its economic lifetime and/or having a performance level in between “Life Safety” to “Collapse Prevention” under the effect of Design Earthquake is defined as “building under seismic risk”. Before going into such a detailed seismic evaluation procedure for each building, there is a need for regional screening surveys to rank the building stock in terms of the potential seismic hazard. This study aims to assess the seismic vulnerability of a group of midrise RC buildings located in Esenler District of Istanbul employing the Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) procedure. In this study, valuable results have been derived to rank the buildings in terms of seismic vulnerability of existing structures located in Istanbul. It is concluded that the number of stories is the key parameter to change the priority range of the building from lowest to highest level. Majority of the buildings with the highest priority level (0≤PS≤30) suffer from the parameters related with poor construction quality, soft story irregularity and the heavy overhang. The aforementioned method could be used to estimate the performance scores of the buildings to determine the priority for more detailed seismic risk assessment procedures.

Factors that influence care priority for chest pain patients using the manchester triage system.

To analyse crucial factors for determining care priority for patients with acute myocardial infarction based on the Manchester Triage System. Triage is the first potentially critical step in the care of myocardial infarction patients. However, there are still very few studies on the factors interfering in the lack of care priority for these patients, impacting their treatment and prognosis. Retrospective cohort study with 217 patients in the emergency department of a Brazilian hospital. Data were collected from patients' records with a primary diagnosis of myocardial infarction, from March 2014-February 2015. Patients were divided into two groups for statistical analysis: high priority (immediate and very urgent) and low priority (urgent, standard and nonurgent). Most of the patients were male, with a mean age of 62.1years, with a prevalence of high blood pressure and smoking as risk factors. Lower care priority level was assigned to 116 (53.4%) patients. Sixty-four (29.5%) patients had ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction, and 29 (45.3%) of these patients were assigned lower care priority level. Coughing, abdominal pain, onset of symptoms over 24hr ago and pain of mild to moderate intensity were clinical predictors associated with lower care priority level. Sweating and high blood pressure were associated with high care priority level. Lower care priority level was associated with increased door-to-electrocardiogram and door-to-troponin times. There was no significant difference between the two groups for door-to-needle and door-to-balloon times. Most of the patients with myocardial infarction were classified as low care priority, showing triage failure either due to symptom variability or need for professional qualification in clinical data collection and interpretation. The results may support clinical evaluation, bringing chest pain assessment into focus.

Quality engineering of crumb rubber by minimizing rework using fuzzy FMEA

The quality of crumb rubber has several grades according to Indonesian Rubber Standard (SIR). In crumb rubber process production, lots of products need to rework because it does not match with specified specifications. The types of rework product based on SIR that cause of defects such as hard, soft and dirt. However, the reworked products will produce crumb rubber with lower grade quality. This certainly affects the selling price of the crumb rubber. Also rework will incur additional production costs. Efforts that can be used to minimize the number of rework is to identify the factors that cause failure and determine the priority level of the risk of failure in the production process crumb rubber. It can be used is by using Fuzzy FMEA method. This method aims to get the risk of failure and the level of risk of failure during the crumb rubber production process. Fuzzy FMEA method also obtained the highest RPN value is equal to 489 for the risk of failure of engine dryer temperature is too high. Through the highest priority level of failure (RPN), company can determine the steps to make improvements during the production process to improve the quality of crumb rubber products.

A comparison of two emergency medical dispatch protocols with respect to accuracy

BackgroundEmergency medical dispatching should be as accurate as possible in order to ensure patient safety and optimize the use of ambulance resources. This study aimed to compare the accuracy, measured as priority level, between two Swedish dispatch protocols – the three-graded priority protocol Medical Index and a newly developed prototype, the four-graded priority protocol, RETTS-A.MethodsA simulation study was carried out at the Emergency Medical Communication Centre (EMCC) in Stockholm, Sweden, between October and March 2016. Fifty-three voluntary telecommunicators working at SOS Alarm were recruited nationally. Each telecommunicator handled 26 emergency medical calls, simulated by experienced standard patients. Manuscripts for the scenarios were based on recorded real-life calls, representing the six most common complaints. A cross-over design with 13 + 13 calls was used. Priority level and medical condition for each scenario was set through expert consensus and used as gold standard in the study.ResultsA total of 1293 calls were included in the analysis. For priority level, n = 349 (54.0%) of the calls were assessed correctly with Medical Index and n = 309 (48.0%) with RETTS-A (p = 0.012). Sensitivity for the highest priority level was 82.6% (95% confidence interval: 76.6–87.3%) in the Medical Index and 54.0% (44.3–63.4%) in RETTS-A. Overtriage was 37.9% (34.2–41.7%) in the Medical Index and 28.6% (25.2–32.2%) in RETTS-A. The corresponding proportion of undertriage was 6.3% (4.7–8.5%) and 23.4% (20.3–26.9%) respectively.ConclusionIn this simulation study we demonstrate that Medical Index had a higher accuracy for priority level and less undertriage than the new prototype RETTS-A. The overall accuracy of both protocols is to be considered as low. Overtriage challenges resource utilization while undertriage threatens patient safety. The results suggest that in order to improve patient safety both protocols need revisions in order to guarantee safe emergency medical dispatching.

Healthcare providers’ gestational weight gain counselling practises and the influence of knowledge and attitudes: a cross-sectional mixed methods study

ObjectiveTo understand current gestational weight gain (GWG) counselling practices of healthcare providers, and the relationships between practices, knowledge and attitudes.DesignConcurrent mixed methods with data integration: cross-sectional survey and semistructured interviews.ParticipantsPrenatal...

Novel Methodology for Triage and Prioritizing Using “Big Data” Patients with Chronic Heart Diseases Through Telemedicine Environmental

Problem Statement: Improper triage and prioritization of big-data patients may result in erroneous strategic decisions. An example of such wrong decision making includes the triage of patients with chronic heart disease to low-priority groups. Incorrect decisions may jeopardize the patients’ health.Objective: This study aims to evaluate and score the big data of patients with chronic heart disease and of those who require urgent attention. The assessment is based on multicriteria decision making in a telemedical environment to improve the triage and prioritization processes.Methods: A hands-on study was performed. A total of 500 patients with chronic heart disease manifested in different symptoms and under various emergency levels were evaluated on the basis of the following four main measures. An electrocardiogram sensor was used to measure the electrical signals of the contractile activity of the heart over time. A SpO2sensor was employed to determine the blood oxygen saturation levels of the patients. A blood pressure sensor was used to obtain the physiological data of the systolic and diastolic blood pressures of the patients. Finally, a non-sensory measurement (text frame) was conducted to assess chest pain and breathing. The patients were prioritized on the basis of a set of measurements by utilizing integrated back-forward adjustment for weight computation and technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution.Discussion Results: Patients with the most urgent cases were given the highest priority level, whereas those with the least urgent cases were assigned with the lowest priority level among all patients’ scores. The first three patients assigned to the medical committee of doctors were proven to be the most critical emergency cases with the highest priority level on the basis of their clinical symptoms. By contrast, the last three patients were proven to be the least critical emergency cases and given the lowest priority levels relative to other patients. The throughput measurement in terms of scalability based on our proposed algorithm was more efficient than that of the benchmark algorithm. Finally, the new method for determining the “big data” patients characteristics based on “4Vs” was suggested.

Challenges for Service Robots-Requirements of Elderly Adults with Cognitive Impairments.

We focused on identifying the requirements and needs of people suffering from Alzheimer disease and early dementia stages with relation to robotic assistants. Based on focus groups performed in two centers (Poland and Spain), we created surveys for medical staff, patients, and caregivers, including: functional requirements; human-robot interaction, the design of the robotic assistant and user acceptance aspects. Using Likert scale and analysis made on the basis of the frequency of survey responses, we identified users' needs as high, medium, and low priority. We gathered 264 completed surveys (100 from medical staff, 81 from caregivers, and 83 from potential users). Most of the respondents, almost at the same level in each of the three groups, accept robotic assistants and their support in everyday life. High level priority functional requirements were related to reacting in emergency situations (calling for help, detecting/removing obstacles) and to reminding about medication intake, about boiling water, turning off the gas and lights (almost 60% of answers). With reference to human-robot interaction, high priority was given to voice operated system and the capability of robotic assistants to reply to simple questions. Our results help in achieving better understanding of the needs of patients with cognitive impairments during home tasks in everyday life. This way of conducting the research, with considerations for the interests of three stakeholder groups in two autonomic centers with proven experience regarding the needs of our patient groups, highlights the importance of obtained results.

Assessing sensitivity and specificity of the Manchester Triage System in the evaluation of acute coronary syndrome in adult patients in emergency care: a systematic review.

Triage is the first assessment and sorting process used to prioritize patients arriving in the emergency department (ED). As a triage tool, the Manchester Triage System (MTS) must have a high sensitivity to minimize the occurrence of under-triage, but must not compromise specificity to avoid the occurrence of overtriage. Sensitivity and specificity of the MTS can be calculated using the frequency of appropriately assigned clinical priority levels for patients presenting to the ED. However, although there are well established criteria for the prioritization of patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS), several studies have reported difficulties when evaluating patients with this condition. The objective of this review was to synthesize the best available evidence on assessing the sensitivity and specificity of the MTS for screening high-level priority adult patients presenting to the ED with ACS. The current review considered studies that evaluated the use of the MTS in the risk classification of adult patients in the ED. In this review, studies that investigated the priority level, as established by the MTS to screen patients under suspicion of ACS or the sensitivity and specificity of the MTS, for screening patients before the medical diagnosis of ACS were included. This review included both experimental and epidemiological study designs. The results were presented in a narrative synthesis. Six studies were appraised by the independent reviewers. All appraised studies enrolled a consecutive or random sample of patients and presented an overall moderate methodological quality, and all of them were included in this review. A total of 54,176 participants were included in the six studies. All studies were retrospective. Studies included in this review varied in content and data reporting. Only two studies reported sensitivity and specificity values or all the necessary data to calculate sensitivity and specificity. The remaining four studies presented either a sensitivity analysis or the number of true positives and false negatives. However, these four studies were conducted considering only data from patients diagnosed with ACS. Sensitivity values were relatively uniform among the studies: 0.70-0.80. A specificity of 0.59 was reported in the study including only patients with non-traumatic chest pain. On the other hand, in the study that included patients with any complaint, the specificity of MTS to screen patients with ACS was 0.97. The current review demonstrates that the MTS has a moderate sensitivity to evaluate patients with ACS. This may compromise time to treatment in the ED, an important variable in the prognosis of ACS. Atypical presentation of ACS, or high specificity, may also explain the moderate sensitivity demonstrated in this review. However, because of minimal data, it is not possible to confirm this hypothesis. It is difficult to determine the acceptable level of sensitivity or specificity to ensure that a certain triage system is safe.

Development and evaluation of bus lanes with intermittent and dynamic priority in connected vehicle environment

ABSTRACTExclusive bus lanes provide a very high level of priority for transit operations, especially for Bus Rapid Transit and Express service, but these lanes could be underutilized and be a source of extra capacity if they could be shared in an intelligent way. This article explores the benefits of providing intermittent priority, called bus lane with intermittent and dynamic priority, of these exclusive bus lanes. Intermittent and dynamic priority can be implemented by allowing vehicles to use the lane when Bus Rapid Transit or Express bus is not present. Drivers can be alerted when a bus is in the lane using either infrastructure-based signs, or in the future using infrastructure-to-vehicle, or connected vehicle communications. Some critical operating parameters for implementing bus lane with intermittent and dynamic priority system including clear distance, degree of saturation (volume-to-capacity ratio), connected vehicle penetration, and bus departure/headway frequency have been investigated in this paper.

Modeling reconfigurability in supply chains using total interpretive structural modeling

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze, and categorize the major enablers of reconfigurability that can facilitate structural changes within a supply chain in a global scenario. The paper also addresses five reconfigurability dimensions in the perspective of supply chains and the major enablers to attain them. The paper further aims to understand the mutual interactions among these enablers through the identification of hierarchical relationships among them.Design/methodology/approachA framework that holistically considers all the major enablers of reconfigurability has been developed. The hierarchical interrelationships between major enablers have been presented and interpreted using a novel qualitative modeling technique, i.e., total interpretive structural modeling (TISM), which is an extension of ISM. SPSS 22.0 is employed to carry out a one-tailed one-sample t-test further to test the hypotheses for validating the results of TISM. Impact matrix cross-reference multiplication applied to a classification (MICMAC) analysis has been employed to identify the driving and dependence powers of these reconfigurability enablers.FindingsIn this paper, 15 enablers for reconfigurability paradigm have been identified through literature review and expert opinions. The authors established interrelationships and interdependencies among these enablers and categorized them as enablers of each dimension. New product development and customer satisfaction come at the highest level of priority. The levels of these enablers were obtained using TISM. The authors compared the results with the clusters derived from MICMAC analysis, and the results are found to be well within the acceptable range.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has implications for both practitioners and academia. The work provides a comprehensive list of enablers that are relevant to reconfigure supply chains in today’s volatile global market. This research will also help decision makers to strategically focus on the top-level enablers and their concerned dimensions. The research is based on an automobile company case study and can be extended to products with volatile and changing demands.Originality/valueThe proposed model for reconfigurability enablers using TISM is a new effort altogether in the area of supply chain management. The novelty of this research lies in its identification of specific enablers to reconfigure a supply chain through different dimensions.