• Energy Research

The process of criteria prioritization and weighting is an important part of multiple attributes decision making. The most frequently applied multi-attribute decision-making weighting tools include analytical hierarchy process, stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis, factor relationship, and best---worst method. When policies are at the core of decision making, stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis method is the most efficient method for criteria evaluation. It involves two important steps: the first is to prioritize the criteria by consulting experts, while the second is the weighting process. This research seeks to extend stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis to improve the quality of the decision-making process by incorporating the reliability evaluation of experts' idea into the first step. Such a component is absent from the first step in all other similar models. Thus, an extended version of stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis can be applied for such evaluation. To test the applicability and performance of the proposed method, a numerical example from an earlier study was used. The proposed version can replace the classic version in future studies as an improved method in decision-making area.

Achieving a supply chain that is resilient to potential unforeseen disruptions (e.g., strikes, floods, tsunamis, etc.) remains one of the vital concerns of decision makers (DMs). To build up a reactive supply chain plan towards resilience, the purchasing department needs to pay the strictest attention to sourcing decisions. This study contributes to the literature through developing an efficient resilient supplier selection approach based on a new holistic framework that enables the identification of key resilience pillars (RPs) and traditional business criteria (TBC) in light of a thorough literature review and experts’ opinions. To this end, the relative importance of TBC/RP was measured by applying the DEMATEL (D) method. This was followed by the application of MABAC-OCRA-TOPSIS-VIKOR (MOTV) methods to verify the suppliers’ ranking. Furthermore, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (SRCC) approach was used to investigate the correlation among the suppliers’ ranking, revealed via the four methods. In this work, a real sourcing problem of scrap metal for a steel manufacturing company was solved to prove the applicability of the proposed approach. The research outcome revealed that the TBC of “trust” is the most important criterion, followed by the “cost”, leaving the “geographical location” criterion as the least important one. In this context, the RP of “flexibility” attained the highest relative weight compared to “agility”, which secured the lowest weight. The results also showed “absolute” correlation among MABAC, VIKOR, and OCRA compared to “very strong” correlation between TOPSIS and the others. This research can support supply chain managers to achieve supply chain systems that reduce not only sourcing costs, but also potential losses because of disrupting threats, by building resilient supply chains.

The decision-making in energy sector involves finding a set of energy sources and conversion devices to meet the energy demands in an optimal way. Making an energy planning decision involves the balancing of diverse ecological, social, technical and economic aspects across space and time. Usually, technical and environmental aspects are represented in the form of multiple criteria and indicators that are often expressed as conflicting objectives. In order to attain higher efficiency in the implementation of renewable energy (RE) systems, the developers and investors have to deploy multi-criteria decision-making techniques. In this paper, a novel hybrid Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory and analytic network process (DEMATEL-ANP) model is proposed in order to stress the importance of the evaluation criteria when selecting alternative REs and the causal relationships between the criteria. Finally, complex proportional assessment and weighted aggregated sum product assessment methods are used to assess the performances of the REs with respect to different evaluating criteria. An illustrative example from Costs assessment of sustainable energy systems (CASES) project, financed by European Commission Framework 6 programme (EU FM 6) for EU member states is presented in order to demonstrate the application feasibility of the proposed model for the comparative assessment and ranking of RE technologies. Sensitivity analysis, result validation and critical outcomes are provided as well to offer guidelines for the policy makers in the selection of the best alternative RE with the maximum effectiveness.

Environmental issues have got incredible attention among daily life activities. Sustainability penetrated in all society practices specially construction industry due to its substantial impact on the environment. Monitoring and controlling architectural project contains a decision problem with multi-varieties analysis. This study aimed to evaluate construction projects of hotels regarding environmental sustainability. To this end, a hybrid Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model is proposed. Step‐wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) compose a unified framework. A private construction project is supposed as a case study. The project is based on establishing a five star hotel in Tehran, Iran. In this research SWARA produces criteria weights and COPRAS will rank decision alternatives. This study can be a strategic route for other similar researches in other fields. Sin financiación 2.460 JCR (2019) Q1, 33/91 Engineering, Multidisciplinary 0.576 SJR (2019) Q1, 101/676 Engineering (miscellaneous) No data IDR 2019 UEM

Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) is a new multicriteria decision making (MCDM) method, which is based on the distances of alternatives from the average scores of attributes. Classical EDAS has been already extended by using ordinary fuzzy sets in case of vague and incomplete data. In this paper, we propose an interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy EDAS method, which is based on the data belonging to membership, nonmembership, and hesitance degrees. A sensitivity analysis is also given to show how robust decisions are obtained through the proposed intuitionistic fuzzy EDAS. The proposed intuitionistic fuzzy EDAS method is applied to the evaluation of solid waste disposal site selection alternatives. The comparative and sensitivity analyses are also included.

Renewable & sustainable energy reviews 168, 112819 (2022). doi:10.1016/j.rser.2022.112819 Published by Elsevier Science, Amsterdam [u.a.]

AbstractCritical infrastructures play a significant role in countries because of the essentiality of nation security, public safety, socioeconomic security, and way of life. According to the importance of infrastructures, it is a necessity to analyze the potential risks to do not allow these risks be converted into events. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a developed framework with the aim to overcome limitations of the classical approach to build a more secure, safer, and more resilient critical infrastructures in order to develop, implement, control. The proposed framework extends conventional RAMCAP (Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection) through introducing new parameters the effects on risk value. According to the complexity of problem and the inherent uncertainty, this research adopts the fuzzy COPRAS (COPRAS-F) as a fuzzy multi criteria decision making technique to determine the weights of each criterion and the importance of alternatives with respect to criteria. C...