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This paper seeks to propose the application of future‐oriented technology analysis (FTA) to law. As law traditionally reacts after events and is resistant to change and transformation, the article argues for equipping legal activities with a set of tools, methods and approaches that enables them to acknowledge and anticipate the various possible futures that will guide society.

The paper describes a series of real world examples and case studies – pilot projects, research consortia and academic programmes – that are already employing FTA methodological approaches to pursue their objectives.

Based on these examples, the article explains the various benefits that the application of specific FTA methodological approaches (such as scenario‐planning, modelling techniques and backcasting) may bring to three specific legal fields: legal research, legislative drafting and law enforcement. The article also examines the prospective perils that systematically applying FTA to law may bring about. While the introduction of FTA tools and techniques to law is deemed extremely important and useful, the paper also draws attention to the problems and challenges that this entails, indicating paths for future research.

Future‐oriented legal studies are rare and, what is worse, the ones that exist lack proper methodology, failing to encompass the use of forecasting methods or foresight tools in the development of their studies. This paper attempts to fill the gap produced by this notorious lack of methodology in the legal analysis of the future, and presents a new methodological approach to law. It proposes the application of future‐oriented analysis (FTA) – as a common umbrella term that encompasses foresight, forecasting and technology assessment methods and tools – to the legal sphere.

Delays in construction projects are both disruptive and expensive. Thus, potential causes of schedule deviation need to be identified and mitigated. In previous research, delay factors were predominantly identified through surveys administered to stakeholders in construction projects. Such delay factors are typically considered individually and presented at the same level without explicitly examining their sequence of occurrence and inter-relationships. In reality, owing to the complex structure of construction projects and long execution time, non-conformance to schedule occurs by a chain of cascading events. An understanding of these linkages is important not only for minimising the delays but also for revealing the liability of stakeholders. To explicitly illustrate the cause–effect and logical relationship between delay factors and further identify the primary factors which possess the highest significance toward the overall project schedule delay, the fault tree analysis (FTA) method, a widely implemented approach to root cause problems in safety-critical systems, has been systematically and rigorously executed.

Using a case study, the in-depth analysis for identifying the most fundamental delay factors has been fulfilled through FTA's tree structure. The logical deduction for mapping and visualising the chronological and cause–effect relationships between various delay factors has been conducted through the logical gate functions of FTA based on the data collected from the site event log, pre-fabricated structural component manufacturing log and face-to-face interview with project stakeholders.

The analysis identified multiple delay factors and showed how they are linked logically and chronologically from the primary causes to the ultimate undesired event in a rigorous manner. A comparison was performed between the proposed FTA model and the conventional investigation method for revealing the responsibility employed in the construction industry, consisting of event logs and problem reports. The results indicate that the FTA model provides richer information and a clearer picture of the network of delay factors. Importantly, the ability of FTA in revealing the causal connection between the events leading to the undesired delays and in comprehending their prominence in the real-world construction project has been clearly displayed.

This study demonstrates a new application of FTA in the construction sector allowing the delay factors to be understood and visualised from a new perspective. The new approach has practical use in finding and removing root causes of the delay, as well as clarifying the attribution of responsibility that causes the delay.

The purpose of this paper is to present a fault tree (FT)-based approach for quantitative risk analysis in the construction industry that can take into account both objective and subjective uncertainties.

In this research, the identified basic events (BEs) are first categorized based on the availability of historical data into probabilistic and possibilistic. The probabilistic and possibilistic events are represented by probability distributions and fuzzy numbers, respectively. Hybrid uncertainty analysis is then performed through a combination of Monte Carlo simulation and fuzzy set theory. The probability of occurrence of the top event is finally calculated using the proposed FT-based hybrid uncertainty analysis method.

The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by implementing in a real steel structure project. A quantitative risk assessment is performed for weld cracks, taking into account of both types of uncertainties. An importance analysis is finally performed to evaluate the contribution of each BE to the probability of occurrence of weld cracks and adopt appropriate response strategies.

In this research, the impact of objective (aleatory) dependence between the occurrences of different BEs and subjective (epistemic) dependence between estimates of the epistemically uncertain probabilities of some BEs are not considered. Moreover, there exist limitations to the application of fuzzy set rules, which were used for aggregating experts’ opinions and ranking purposes of the BEs in the FT model. These limitations can be investigated through further research.

It is believed that the proposed hybrid uncertainty analysis method presents a robust and powerful tool for quantitative risk analysis, as both types of uncertainties are taken into account appropriately.

The main objective of this research was to combine the integration between two fields of knowledge – future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) and games. This study aims to capture the stakeholders’ actions and decision-making in a procedural, interactive and collaborative way to find a vision of the future.

The framework was designed from a literature review on the related research topics, exploring elements and methods, also how we brought the two fields together. The framework was structured in four steps: exploring – deciding – matching – evaluating. For each phase, deep reflections were described to understand the current situation, identify essential future issues and provide recommendations for action.

One attractive aspect of the FTA-games is the characteristics of each field but combined made it possible to evaluate future developments and trends. The elements present in games can boost FTA activities through interaction, engagement, experiences, collaboration and motivation, among other elements. Systematically, we seek to ensure traceability by identifying challenges, solutions, execution and results achieved and using tools and elements that make prospecting practical.

This article systematizes the connection between two fields in the form of a framework. At each stage of the framework, participants and strategists are challenged to seek solutions to future challenges, allowing these participants to engage in a common cause and make actions tangible. Game elements can be shaped to explore new avenues in FTA activities, as they are used in games in specific subject domains. These fields tend to be fragmented and are not integrated.

In recent years, the application of robots in different industrial sectors such as nuclear power generation, construction, automobile, firefighting and medicine, etc. is increasing day by day. In large industrial plants generally humans and robots work together to accomplish several tasks and lead to the problem of safety and reliability because any malfunction event of robots may cause human injury or even death. To access the reliability of a robot, sufficient amount of failure data is required which is sometimes very difficult to collect due to rare events of any robot failures. Also, different types of their failure pattern increase the difficulty which finally leads to the problem of uncertainty. To overcome these difficulties, this paper presents a case study by assessing fuzzy fault tree analysis (FFTA) to control robot-related accidents to provide safe working environment to human beings in any industrial plant.

Presented FFTA method uses different fuzzy membership functions to quantify different uncertainty factors and applies alpha-cut coupled weakest t-norm (Tω) based approximate fuzzy arithmetic operations to obtain fuzzy failure probability of robot-human interaction fault event which is the main contribution of the paper.

The result obtained from presented FFTA method is compared with other listing approaches. Critical basic events are also ranked using V-index for making suitable action plan to control robot-related accidents. Study indicates that the presented FFTA is a good alternative method to analyze fault in robot-human interaction for providing safe working environment in an industrial plant.

Existing fuzzy reliability assessment techniques designed for robots mainly use triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs), triangle vague sets (TVS) or triangle intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) to quantify data uncertainty. Present study overcomes this shortcoming and generalizes the idea of fuzzy reliability assessment for robots by adopting different IFS to control robot-related accidents to provide safe working environment to human. This is the main contribution of the paper.

This study aims to propose a tree‐based analytic tool that may be used in analyzing a large‐scale and complex service process. The tenet of this tool is based on the Boolean logic and named service tree analysis (STA). The proposed STA aims to reflect the customer participation perspective and to propose how to analyze the service process and deduce useful information.

Fault tree analysis is used as an underlying methodology since it has a Boolean logic to describe the customer's selection of each element and identifies critical events. Taking these advantages of the fault tree, the proposed STA consists of three main parts; service tree construction, qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis. First, a service tree is constructed depending on how the service elements are selected by the customer; If the subordinate events are always selected by customers, they are linked with an AND gate, otherwise, with an OR gate. Next, in the qualitative analysis, service elements are characterized as core services, supporting services, and optional services by deducing a minimal service cut set. Last, qualitative analysis deals with deriving the impact of each service element based on the Kano model.

The suggested STA has advantages which help strategic operation and management of the service process.

This study is unique and even exploratory in that it first adopts the notion of tree analysis in structuring a large‐scale, complex service system. Further, the proposed service tree provides a systematic approach from customer participation perspective, which makes the service process to be managed efficiently.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Firms seeking to anticipate potential trends and challenges in order to develop effective strategies can combine future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) with games. Game elements can strengthen FTA as players are able to engage in collaborative experimentation to better understand the present situation and explore potential solutions to future challenges.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to find out a scientific method to evaluate quality of complex products, whose quality is different from general products.

Based on interval grey number theory, reliability analysis method and stochastic network theory, authors have established grey success tree analysis-graph evaluation and review technique (GSTA-GERT) model in this paper.

Comparing complex products and general products, authors have found that complex products have two characters, i.e. quality of manufacture and quality of service. Furthermore, this paper has proved the GSTA-GERT model is a scientific and reasonable approach to estimate quality of complex products from the sight of manufacture-service network.

This paper has established GSTA-GERT model, which surmounts the defect of traditional estimation method, such as lacking logic analysis in the method of analytic hierarchy process.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reliability of the washing system in a paper plant in a more promising way under vague environment by reducing the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness and accelerating the computation process using the T_ω (weakest t-norm) based fuzzy lambda-tau (TBFLT) technique.

This paper presents a unified approach for analyzing the fuzzy reliability of the washing system under vague environment. This approach applies the TBFLT technique which uses triangular fuzzy numbers for incorporating data uncertainty, fault tree and lambda-tau method for finding system failure rate and repair time mathematical expressions while simplified T_ω-based arithmetic operations are applied for computing various reliability parameters of the system. The effectiveness of the TBFLT technique has been demonstrated by analyzing fuzzy reliability of the system using five different techniques including TBFLT. Moreover, this paper applies extended Tanaka’s (1983) approach to rank the critical components of the system.

The TBFLT technique has the advantage of low computation complexity in comparison to other techniques and effectively reduces the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness. This main finding verifies the conclusion made by Chen (1994).

The author has suggested a simple and more applicable technique for analyzing the fuzzy reliability of any complex process industrial system under vague environment. The effectiveness of the technique has been demonstrated by computing various reliability parameters of the washing system of a paper plant.

This paper aims to examine and compare extant literature on the application of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques in humanitarian operations (HOs) and humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). It identifies the status of existing research in the field and suggests a roadmap for academicians to undertake further research in HOs and HSCs using MCDM techniques.

The paper systematically reviews the research on MCDM applications in HO and HSC domains from 2011 to 2022, as the field gained traction post-2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami phenomena. In the first step, an exhaustive search for journal articles is conducted using 48 keyword searches. To ensure quality, only those articles published in journals featuring in the first quartile of the Scimago Journal Ranking were selected. A total of 103 peer-reviewed articles were selected for the review and then segregated into different categories for analysis.

The paper highlights insufficient high-quality research in HOs that utilizes MCDM methods. It proposes a roadmap for scholars to enhance the research outcomes by advocating adopting mixed methods. The analysis of various studies revealed a notable absence of contextual reference. A contextual mind map specific to HOs has been developed to assist future research endeavors. This resource can guide researchers in determining the appropriate contextual framework for their studies.

This paper will help practitioners understand the research carried out in the field. The aspiring researchers will identify the gap in the extant research and work on future research directions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first literature review on applying MCDM in HOs and HSCs. It summarises the current status and proposes future research directions.