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Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.

With numerous and ambiguous sets of information and often conflicting requirements, construction management is a complex process involving much uncertainty. Decision makers may be challenged with satisfying multiple criteria using vague information. Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) provides an innovative approach for addressing complex problems featuring diverse decision makers’ interests, conflicting objectives and numerous but uncertain bits of information. FMCDM has therefore been widely applied in construction management. With the increase in information complexity, extensions of fuzzy set (FS) theory have been generated and adopted to improve its capacity to address this complexity. Examples include hesitant FSs (HFSs), intuitionistic FSs (IFSs) and type-2 FSs (T2FSs). This chapter introduces commonly used FMCDM methods, examines their applications in construction management and discusses trends in future research and application. The chapter first introduces the MCDM process as well as FS theory and its three main extensions, namely, HFSs, IFSs and T2FSs. The chapter then explores the linkage between FS theory and its extensions and MCDM approaches. In total, 17 FMCDM methods are reviewed and two FMCDM methods (i.e. T2FS-TOPSIS and T2FS-PROMETHEE) are further improved based on the literature. These 19 FMCDM methods with their corresponding applications in construction management are discussed in a systematic manner. This review and development of FS theory and its extensions should help both researchers and practitioners better understand and handle information uncertainty in complex decision problems.

Improving the medical oxygen supply chain (MOSC) is important to cope with the uneven demand and supply seen in the MOSC when India faced the second wave of COVID-19. This improvisation increases the supply chain (SC) maturity and consequently the efficiency and resiliency to tackle oxygen shortage across the country and to prevent another similar scenario from ever happening. The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the solutions to overcome the issues faced by the MOSC during the second wave of COVID-19 cases in India and in turn reduce the extent of casualties in the expected third wave.

This paper uses best worst method (BWM) and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution to classify the sub-criteria for solutions to solve major SC issues. BWM is used to determine the weights of the sub-criteria and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution for the final ranking of the solutions to be adopted.

The result of this study shows that the Internet of Things based tagging system is the best solution followed by horizontal and vertical integration of SC in making a resilient and digitized MOSC capable of handling general bottlenecks during a possible third wave.

The research provides insights that can enable the personnel involved in MOSC. Proper understanding will help the practitioners involved in the SC to effectively tailor the operations and to allocate the resources available in an effective and dynamic manner by minimizing or eliminating the pre-existing bottlenecks within the SC.

The proposed framework provides an accurate ranking and decision-making tool for the implementation of the solutions for the maturity of the MOSC.

The paper aims to identify the most supply chain resilient company suitable for the customized preferences of partner firms in the context of the Chinese supply chain framework during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A hybrid multicriteria model, i.e. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), was used to assign weights to each criterion, which was subsequently analyzed by three approaches, namely Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Fuzzy DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory), and Evaluation Based on Distance from Average Solution (EDA), to rank the top ten companies in descending order of supply chain resilience. Further, sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the consistency in ranking with variation in weights. The rankings are validated by a novel Ensemble Ranking algorithm and by supply chain domain experts.

The rankings suggest the company “China Energy Construction Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd” is the most feasible and resilient company, presenting interesting findings to partner firms, and Bosch is the least reliable supply chain company of the ten firms considered, thus presenting interesting findings to partner companies.

“Crisis Management Beforehand” is most critical in the current pandemic scenario. This implies that companies need to first prioritize taking proactive steps in crisis management followed by the need to minimize the “Expected impact of pandemic.” Performance factors also need to be regulated (sales, supply chain rank and financial performance) to maintain the company's overall reputation. Considering the consistent performance of the China Energy Construction Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd., it is recommended as the most reliable supply chain firm to forge strategic partnerships with other supply chain stakeholders like suppliers and customers. On the other hand, Bosch is not recommended as a supply chain reliable company and needs to improve its crisis management capabilities to minimize the pandemic impact.

The paper aims to identify the most supply chain resilient company suitable for the customized preferences of partner firms in the context of the Chinese supply chain framework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rankings suggest the company “China Energy Construction Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd” is the most feasible and resilient company, presenting interesting findings to partner firms, and Bosch is the least reliable supply chain company of the ten firms considered, thus presenting interesting findings to partner companies.

This paper aims to provide a framework for evaluating the impact of implementing customer relationship management (CRM) based on the balanced scorecard (BSC). The outcomes illustrate the gaps between the present conditions of CRM implementation in a specific organization, which leads to some strategic remedies. These remedies are going to be ranked to achieve the best solution for enhancing the quality of CRM in the organization.

This study investigates the weights of measures presented in the CRM‐BSC by distributing the questionnaires among 44 experts in the beverage industry of Iran. It also benefits from judgment‐purposive in non‐probability sampling method for collecting data. The results are analyzed through a fuzzy approach. The strategic remedies for the drawbacks of the organization that were obtained from the CRM‐BSC are also proposed by the experts. These remedies are again evaluated by questionnaires and some selective tools of multi‐criteria decision‐making approach namely: simple additive weighting and technique for ordering preference by similarity to ideal solution.

Through the evaluation process, six significant gaps related to the CRM performance of the organization are agreed upon. For each of these gaps, the strategic remedies are proposed by the experts. The outcomes of ranking these remedies imply that customer feedbacks, updating managerial knowledge and employee belongingness should be the main objectives of the manufacturer for improvement.

This study provides a better understanding of a more effective CRM system for different kinds of organizations by first, clarifying the customer‐related performance gaps of the target organization and second, by presenting strategic solutions for the detected areas. The framework could be also beneficial in other fields of industry, but the relevancy of the measures should be considered.

The CRM‐BSC framework is customized to the Iranian industrial environment. The structure of the measures in the scorecard is proposed for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to explore green supply chain management (GSCM) performance measures and to develop a framework for evaluating the impact of GSCM implementation on organizational performance.

This research develops a performance measurement framework by integrating GSCM enabler with GSCM performance measures criteria. These criteria are selected from literature review and expert opinion. This study proposes a fuzzy balanced scorecard – fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution-based methodology to evaluate the overall organizational performance. The empirical case study of an Indian automobile organization is conducted. Further, the proposed framework is tested with three Indian Automobile organizations and their results are compared with the case organization.

The integrated methodology offers an effective way to measure and benchmark the impact of the proposed GSCM performance measurement framework. The empirical results show that the output of the proposed model is consistent. Thus, the study contributes to the advancement of knowledge toward GSCM and its management for sustainability.

This study is limited to the automotive sector; hence the outcomes may not be comprehensively applicable across different sectors. The results cannot be applied to other sectors with other product and process specificities.

It helps the practitioners to measure and improve the effectiveness of GSCM implementation.

This study is the generalized performance measurement framework and can be used to measure the performance for any type of organizations to benchmark one organization with the other or the group of organizations.

Identifying and prioritizing supply chain risk is significant from any product’s quality and reliability perspective. Under an input-process-output workflow, conventional risk prioritization uses a risk priority number (RPN) aligned to the risk analysis. Imprecise information coupled with a lack of dealing with hesitancy margins enlarges the scope, leading to improper assessment of risks. This significantly affects monitoring quality and performance. Against the backdrop, a methodology that identifies and prioritizes the operational supply chain risk factors signifies better risk assessment.

The study proposes a multi-criteria model for risk prioritization involving multiple decision-makers (DMs). The methodology offers a robust, hybrid system based on the Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IF) Set merged with the “Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution.” The nature of the model is robust. The same is shown by applying fuzzy concepts under multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) to prioritize the identified business risks for better assessment.

The proposed IF Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for risk prioritization model can improve the decisions within organizations that make up the chains, thus guaranteeing a “better quality in risk management.” Establishing an efficient representation of uncertain information related to traditional failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) treatment involving multiple DMs means identifying potential risks in advance and providing better supply chain control.

In a company’s supply chain, blockchain allows data storage and transparent transmission of flows with traceability, privacy, security and transparency (Roy et al., 2022). They asserted that blockchain technology has great potential for traceability. Since risk assessment in supply chain operations can be treated as a traceability problem, further research is needed to use blockchain technologies. Lastly, issues like risk will be better assessed if predicted well; further research demands the suitability of applying predictive analysis on risk.

The study proposes a hybrid framework based on the generic risk assessment and MCDM methodologies under a fuzzy environment system. By this, the authors try to address the supply chain risk assessment and mitigation framework better than the conventional one. To the best of their knowledge, no study is found in existing literature attempting to explore the efficacy of the proposed hybrid approach over the traditional RPN system in prime sectors like steel (with production planning data). The validation experiment indicates the effectiveness of the results obtained from the proposed IF TOPSIS Approach to Risk Prioritization methodology is more practical and resembles the actual scenario compared to those obtained using the traditional RPN system (Kim et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2018).

This study provides mathematical models to simulate the supply chain risk assessment, thus helping the manufacturer rank the risk level. In the end, the authors apply this model in a big-sized organization to validate its accuracy. The authors validate the proposed approach to an integrated steel plant impacting the production planning process. The model’s outcome substantially adds value to the current risk assessment and prioritization, significantly affecting better risk management quality.

The purpose of this paper is to present a fuzzy multicriteria decision‐making (MCDM) methodology for selecting employees.

The methodology is based on the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multicriteria decision tool and the algorithm presented by Karsak. Assuming that n are candidates each of whom is evaluated in j criteria, the methodology starts by defining the ideal and the anti‐ideal candidate.

The applicability of the methodology is discussed using real data from a major Greek bank. As a result, it is necessary to consider criteria, criteria weights, and the distances from both the ideal and the anti‐ideal solution in order to select the more appropriate candidate.

Modern approaches recognize that selection of human resources is a complex process that involves a significant amount of vagueness and subjectivity, and serious consideration for candidate's uncertainties of career life.

The method can help human resources managers reach better decisions by selecting employees through a process that takes into account organizational objectives as well as employees' qualities. Moreover, selection of human resources can be seen as part of an integrated career management system in the organization.

The MCDM methodology can adequately represent the imprecision and uncertainty that are inherent in any modern organization. The method is quite flexible since criteria weights and distances from ideal and anti‐ideal candidates can be replaced by any method for ranking fuzzy numbers.

The purpose of this paper is to present one modification of the fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and to develop a corresponding computer program which could be used for the multicriteria decision making for problems in practice.

This method is based on the uncertainties and probabilities of input data for ratings of alternatives with respect to criteria and weights of criteria that are presented by triangular fuzzy numbers as probabilistic fuzzy values. These input data are transformed in the procedure into output data that are relevant for the ranking of alternatives and decision making.

The proposed method is based on the generalized mean and spread of fuzzy numbers that are calculated according to probability of fuzzy events due to Zadeh. Ranking of alternatives for relevant criteria performs according to relative expected closeness, coefficient of variation and relative standard deviation of distance of alternatives to the ideal solutions. The most acceptable rule is related to the minimal value of the expected relative distance to positive ideal solution, especially when the coefficient of variation of distance to this solution is small. The attached example, related to a real project, confirms these findings.

This paper proposes three novel contributions in this area. Unlike the methods proposed by other authors, the weighted fuzzy decision matrix is expressed by the matrix of generalized expected values and matrix of generalized variances. To compute elements of these two matrices, exact formulae are derived and then the modified fuzzy TOPSIS procedure is carried out.