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The purpose of this paper is to report a study in which analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used for selecting the best concept in lean environment.

There existed a need for the case organization to identify the best concept from the perspective of lean manufacturing. The concept selection problem is a typical multi‐criterion decision‐making problem. AHP judges and selects the elements/concepts which have a greater influence on the pre‐determined objective. In this study, AHP has been used for selecting the best concept.

The validation indicated that AHP is an effective approach for enabling best concept selection, thereby improving the leanness of the organization.

The implementation study has been carried out by substituting the data gathered from only one manufacturing organization. Yet the findings and contribution of this research work would be useful to the leaders of majority of the manufacturing companies situated in the world.

The usage of the approach will indicate that AHP enables the best concept selection in advanced manufacturing environments.

A case study has been reported to indicate the feasibility of selecting the best concept in a lean environment. Hence, the contributions are original.

During the service condition of residential constructions with concrete structure, the influence of inside and exterior factors will result in different degrees of harm to concrete engineering. Therefore, it is very necessary to continue engineering work toward the concrete structure. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the factors on the comprehensive performance of the concrete structure engineering.

Applying a mathematics method to establish the comprehensive evaluation model of the concrete structure engineering performance, qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted for reinforced concrete structural performance analysis.

The key to a safe construction project is to require all bidders to submit a written safety plan with their bids. The instruction to bidders must include guidelines for an acceptable safety plan and state clearly that the substance of the safety plan will be reviewed, and its adequacy will be a determining factor in who shall be selected as the contractor.

Based on the characteristics of concrete structure, applying the analytic hierarchy process to evaluate the concrete structure engineering comprehensive performance, an evaluation index system was built. The research combines quantitative method with qualitative method evaluation was made.

This paper aims to address the supplier selection (SS) problem under dynamic business environments to optimize the procurement cost of spare-parts in the context of a mining equipment company (MEC). Practically, involved parameters’ value does not remain constant as planning periods due to fluctuation in the demand and their market dynamics. Therefore, dynamicity in the parameter is considered as an important factor when a company forms a responsive chain through most eligible suppliers with respect to planning periods. This area of study may be considered for their complexities to the approaches toward order-allocations with bi-products of unused and repair spare-parts.

An integrated methodology of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and mixed-integer non-linear programming (MILP) is implemented in the two stages during each planning periods. In the first stage, AHP is used to obtain the relative weights with respect to each spare-parts of each criterion and based on that, the ranking is evaluated in accordance with case considered. And in the second stage, MILP is formulated to find the allocations of each spare-part with two distinct approaches through Model-1 and Model-2 separately. Moreover, Model-1 and Model-2 are outlined based on the ranking and efficient parameters-value under cost, limited capacities, quality level and delay lead time respectively.

The ranking and their optimal order-allocation of potential suppliers are obtained during consecutive planning periods for both unused and repair spare-parts. Subsequently, sensitivity analysis is conducted to deduce the key nuggets with the comparison of Model-1 and Model-2 in the changing of capacity, demand and cost per spare-parts. From this analysis, it is found that suppliers who have optimal parameter settings would be better for order-allocations than ranking during the changing planning period.

This paper points out the situation-specific approach for SS problem for a mining industry which often faces disruptive supplying environments. The managerial implication between ranking and parameters are highlighted through Model-1 and Model-2 by sensitivity analysis.

It provides useful directions for managers who are involved in the procurement of spare-parts in the mining environment. For this, suppliers are selected for order-allocation by using Model-1 and Model-2 in the dynamic business environment. The solvability of the model is presented using LINGO 17. Furthermore, the case company selected in this study can be extended to other sectors.

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is basically a synergistic association between two or more industries or businesses wherein the waste or by-product of one industry becomes the raw material or immediate material of another industry. IS is believed to bring in significant benefits to the organizations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the competitiveness attained through IS.

Analytic hierarchy process was adopted to analyze the various organizational competitiveness of IS implementation. The conceptual model was developed to understand the interrelationship between 14 outcomes and 5 organizational competitiveness which are identified from the literature review. The attainment of these five organizational competitiveness was evaluated by computing the global priority score of the outcomes.

The global priority score suggests that the organizational collaboration (0.19) is the important output. Further, collective learning and growth (44 percent) have been identified as the important competitiveness attained through the implementation of IS.

The relationship matrix developed can be used by the practicing managers/researchers to understand the various interactions. Thus, systematic decision making and guidance for future implementation studies will be ensured.

In the past, few authors discussed the conceptualization of IS; however, the impact of IS on the organizational performance was not extensively studied. Therefore, a conceptual model was proposed to analyze the attainment of various competitiveness through the participation of industrial symbiosis network. Further, based on the computed scores, the relationship matrix developed between outcomes and organizational competitiveness is one of the significant contributions of this work.

This paper aims to guide about prioritisation and ranking of the solutions and overcoming barriers to facilitate the adoption of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) by using a hybrid framework.

It identifies LSS barriers and solutions to facilitate LSS adoption through literature review and by involving subject experts. The study makes use of fuzzy set theory and proposes a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-modified TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution) framework. It uses sensitivity analysis to establish framework robustness.

The key findings of this techno-managerial study are identification and prioritisation of 27 LSS barriers and 22 solutions to overcome adoption challenges, proposition and usage of fuzzy AHP-modified TOPSIS framework, guidance regarding where to focus for facilitating LSS adoption and ensuring robustness using sensitivity analysis, which establishes insignificant deviation in rankings when criteria weights are altered.

Some biasness and subjectivity may exist during pairwise comparisons as human judgements are involved.

Handling a hybrid solution like LSS is never easy. It is expected that the study will help industry professionals to plan their LSS adoption attempts effectively. Guidance regarding LSS barriers will assist in observing necessary precautions to avoid failures. It will open up new research fronts for researchers also.

Literature is full of studies regarding LSS barriers and its rankings. It is very rare to witness a study like ours, which discusses the barriers and links with solutions and its prioritisation. Proposed hybrid framework for a hybrid techno-managerial approach such as LSS is unique and acts as the roadmap for smooth implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop criteria for project manager selection based on desired skills of a project manager and facilitate the selection of a suitable candidate from a pool of potential candidates for the implementation of projects in the Indian context.

The study utilizes three major skills, namely human skill, conceptual and organizational skills; technical skill along with their sub-skills to develop criteria for project manager selection. Based on the responses of project professionals from industry, the study uses analytical hierarchy process to prioritize and identify the relative importance of different skills in the criteria in order to develop a hierarchical structure for project manager selection.

The study finds that at the first level of project manager selection criteria, conceptual and organizational skills are the most important selection criteria followed by human skills and technical skills. At the second level of project manager selection criteria, planning, delegating authority and understanding methods, processes, and procedures are some of the important sub-selection criteria. The weights indicating the relative importance of major selection criteria and sub-selection criteria can be used to evaluate the relative weight of a given candidate for selection as a project manager.

The results in this study are derived from specific demographic conditions in India. Future research with larger samples from other countries is needed for generalizations of the proposed criteria.

The proposed method quantifies the intangible qualitative criteria to select a project manager, which can aid decision-makers in a multi-criteria decision-making environment.

This research paper is focused on the identification of critical skills for the selection of a project manager, which is almost neglected by the researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the integration of total productive maintenance (TPM) and ISO 9001 certification by contributing a model named as TPM 9001:2008.

In the beginning of the paper, the origin, growth and capabilities of TPM and ISO 9001 certification in enabling the organizations to perform at world class level are appraised by citing research outcomes reported in literature arena. The information and knowledge thus gathered from literature arena are used to conceptualize TPM 9001:2008 model. Through this conceptualization, the eight TPM pillars are fitted into the five major clauses of ISO 9001:2008 standard. In order to illustrate this conceptualization, the contents of a sub-clause of TPM 9001:2008 model are presented and the rationale behind designating it is appraised.

TPM 9001:2008 model brings out synergy from the two renowned world class strategies namely “TPM” and “ISO 9001 certification”.

The paper points out that the practical validity of TPM 9001:2008 model shall be established by conducting real time case studies in various organizations.

This paper presents a unique approach for integrating TPM elements with ISO 9001:2008 standard based quality management system, as a single framework benefiting the contemporary organizations.

Many projects focus on the reliable operation of the activities in the project. Any failure in the process activities leads to major problems resulting in waste, defects, equipment damage, which has a direct impact on the consumers. In addition, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is not new to this issue. LSS projects have faced an interruption in the process flow and unforeseen defects. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the vital failure factors of LSS projects.

Through extant literature review, the researchers found 44 critical failure factors (CFFs) of LSS. Using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) SIMOS approach, the decision makers’ (DMs) rating and weight for each factor were collected. Moreover, the study was conducted in both the manufacturing and service industries to identify the impact of CFFs in LSS projects.

CFFs and their evaluation have received little attention in the literature. Most of the previous studies deal only with the identification of the success factors in general. Therefore, the study identified 44 CFFs and ranked them through DMs. In addition, the TOPSIS SIMOS approach ranked the vital failure factors enabling the management to avert the LSS project from failures.

The study focused on project failures due to CFFs of LSS. Nevertheless, it did not consider other failure factors of project and knowledge management. Further, the sample used to test the approach was considerably small. Therefore, the study can be repeated with significant samples and the vital failure factors compared.

In real-life application, all the parameters in the LSS project need to be understood in a better manner. In such a condition, the practitioner needs to know that the project never fails due to the CFFs and TOPSIS SIMOS approach can prevent the LSS project failures.

The study applied TOPSIS SIMOS approach to rank the CFFs in an LSS project, which is first of its kind and aids the practitioners to make the right decisions in the business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to visualize the prioritization among essential factors of cellular manufacturing system (CMS) implementation using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and analytic network process (ANP) methods.

Based on literature review, 4 enabler dimensions and 17 CM factors were identified which were validated by experts from academia and industry. Then, AHP and ANP models are proposed in evaluating CMS implementation dimensions and factors. The results are validated using sensitivity analysis.

These models give firms a straightforward and simple to utilize way to deal with CMS efficiently. The two strategies were appeared to be powerful in choosing a strategy for CMS implementation. The two strategies brought about nearly similar outcomes. Both methods consider the particular necessities of the organization through its own accessible ability.

The techniques exhibited in this paper can be utilized by a wide range of organizations for adopting CMS that have a higher impact on performance and thus overall productivity. The two techniques are explained in a step-by-step approach for easier adoption by practitioners.

The strength of the present study is that it is one of the first few to be conducted in perspective for CM implementation factors analysis.