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Prioritising Tendering Activities for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
... The article of Swanker et al. [6] is related to the tender selection problem. authors proposed a knowledge discovery and mining aided multicriteria decision making approach to assist the tender offer selection process. ...
Businesses always need to know the offers exist so they need a platform that helps them to easily find the offers they have. The platform based on the mobile agents describe this article is a platform allows to detect the existing offers and to make a filtering to have the most suitable offers for the company. Our decision-making platform for bidding is based on intelligent agents. These agents will seek tenders in relation to the specialty area of the company. Then they will make calculations and generate a report which contains the description of the offers found and the details of the studies applied to these offers. Finally, the final decision, that is to say, is that the company can apply to win the project or not knowing that the agent knows the potential of the company and its limits. During our project, we discuss several relevant concepts as follows: Artificial Intelligence; Intelligent agents; Web Mining; Big data.
... For measures of effectiveness (MOE) estimation, matrix normalization was performed. Normalization (or standardization) is an analytical activity that, through mathematical [25], [26]. Once the "weights vector" was defined (defined through stakeholder engagement), the next activity was to multiply each normalized indicator for the corresponding weight of the criterion. ...
The low accessibility of transportation to the main Italian touristic places (during the summer period) produces road congestion that is often high and negative environmental impacts (externalities). This is the case of the coastal area between Cesena and Venice, which is particularly affected by this phenomenon because of a unique local road, the Romea: it allows car trips among all these touristic places. Beginning from these considerations, the realization of a new highway was proposed, to improve transport accessibility to this area. A Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) was identified as the rational evaluation process to verify the sustainability (economic, social and environmental) of this transportation project. The aim of this paper is to describe the MCA evaluation analyses applied to this case study, underlining the main results obtained. One of the main findings of the research was the applied evaluation methodology. A rational and participated weights definition criterion process was implemented, through a “Delphi method” within a Public Engagement process. The MCA results show that the best design alternative is the construction of a highway plus the realization of a “green-way”. Furthermore, we found that the estimated non-user's benefit incidence was about 80% of the total, underlining the appropriateness in using this evaluation method, useful to better quantify non-monetary externalities (versus the cost-benefit analysis). Finally, to verify the robustness of the results we also performed a sensitivity analysis, confirming the main results.
Collaboration Moderator Services (CMS) are discussed as a Knowledge management service for SMEs operating in a virtual organization (VO). In this research, a CMS supports the pre-creation stage of a VO by quickly identifying potential business opportunities and collaborative partners. Text mining techniques are used to analyze calls for tender documents based on the competencies and areas of interest stored in the shared information about companies in a collaboration pool. A case study of UK-based SMEs demonstrates the application of text mining as a knowledge discovery tool, supporting SMEs at the pre-creation stage of a VO. Results show that text mining can be used to (1) identify possible business opportunities for SMEs in the collaborative network (2) Indicate potential collaborations between pairs of SMEs using link analysis and (3) Raise awareness of business opportunities and possible SME partners for multi-enterprise collaborations using a dimensional matrix.
A supplier selection decision inherently is a multi-criterion problem. It is a decision of strategic importance to companies. The nature of this decision usually is complex and unstructured. Management science techniques might be helpful tools for these kinds of decision-making problems. The aim of this paper is to use fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to select the best supplier firm providing the most satisfaction for the criteria determined. The purchasing managers of a white good manufacturer established in Turkey were interviewed and the most important criteria taken into account by the managers while they were selecting their supplier firms were determined by a questionnaire. The fuzzy AHP was used to compare these supplier firms.
Some contractor selection methods currently in existence are criticized as incomplete and biased, and lacking consideration in terms of the contractor's ability to achieve simultaneously, time, cost, quality and safety standards. This research examines an alternative contractor selection model called the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), which will help construction clients to identify contractors with the best potential to deliver satisfactory outcomes in a final contractor selection process which is not based simply on the lowest bid. The AHP comprises three parts: hierarchic structure, prioritization procedure, and calculation of results. This model is tested by a hypothetical scenario where three contractor candidates are evaluated. The criteria used for contractor selection in the model have been identified, and the significance of each criterion has been arrived at by conducting a questionnaire survey in public organizations in Hong Kong. Comparisons are made by ranking the aggregate scores of each candidate with regard to their performance against each of the criteria, and the candidate associated with the highest scores is the best contractor on this occasion.
Presents an approach for solving qualitative multicriteria
analysis (MA) problems using fuzzy pairwise comparison. Fuzzy numbers
are used to approximate the decision-maker's (DM's) subjective
assessments in assessing alternative performance and criteria
importance. The concept of fuzzy extent analysis is applied for solving
the reciprocal judgement matrices. To avoid the complex and unreliable
process of comparing fuzzy utilities, the α-cut technique is
applied to transform the fuzzy performance matrix into an interval
matrix. Incorporated with the DM's attitude towards risk, an overall
performance index is obtained for each alternative across all criteria
in line with the ideal solution concept. An empirical study of a tender
selection problem in Australia is conducted. The result shows that the
approach developed is simple and comprehensible in concept, efficient in
computation, and robust and flexible in modeling the human evaluation
process, thus making it of general use for solving practical MA problems
The ‘lowest-price wins’ philosophy has been a consistent theme of contractor selection over the years. To comprehensively elucidate this selection preference and compare it with the use of a multi-criteria selection (MCS) approach in the tenderer evaluation process, this paper investigates MCS tender price selection preferences. That is, project-specific criteria (PSC) and lowest-price wins selection practices of UK construction clients, in both building and civil engineering works at in detail via results of the empirical survey. The investigation provides further insight into the evaluation of contractors' attributes (i.e. PSC). Levels of importance assigned (LIA) for each criterion were analysed (i.e. quantitative analysis of the differences in opinions and, variance amongst the respondents) in a multivariate statistical method. Importance attached by construction clients to the ‘lowest-price wins’ philosophy is also presented. Contrast was made between the MCS approach and the ‘lowest-price wins’ option amongst the surveyed construction clients. It was found that increased awareness of the use of PSC prevailed amongst the survey construction clients. This indicated that cost has to be tempered with the evaluation of PSC and the attempt of construction clients searching for a new evaluation paradigm (i.e. adoption of MCS approach rather than basing on the lowest-price wins alone).
This paper serves as an introduction to the Analytic Hierarchy Process - A multicriteria decision making approach in which factors are arranged in a hierarchic structure. The principles and the philosophy of the theory are summarized giving general background information of the type of measurement utilized, its properties and applications.
The ‘lowest-price wins’ philosophy has been a consistent theme of contractor selection over the years. To comprehensively elucidate this selection preference and compare it with the use of a multi-criteria selection (MCS) approach in the tenderer evaluation process, this paper investigates MCS tender price selection preferences. That is, project-specific criteria (PSC) and lowest-price wins selection practices of UK construction clients, in both building and civil engineering works at in detail via results of the empirical survey. The investigation provides further insight into the evaluation of contractors’ attributes (i.e. PSC). Levels of importance assigned (LIA) for each criterion were analysed (i.e. quantitative analysis of the differences in opinions and, variance amongst the respondents) in a multivariate statistical method. Importance attached by construction clients to the ‘lowest-price wins’ philosophy is also presented. Contrast was made between the MCS approach and the ‘lowest-price wins’ option amongst the surveyed construction clients. It was found that increased awareness of the use of PSC prevailed amongst the survey construction clients. This indicated that cost has to be tempered with the evaluation of PSC and the attempt of construction clients searching for a new evaluation paradigm (i.e. adoption of MCS approach rather than basing on the lowest-price wins alone).
In many decision-making problems, the decision information is expressed in the form of preference relations. This paper presents incomplete linguistic preference relations to evaluate criteria of tender selection in public office buildings. The proposed method yields decision matrices for making pairwise comparisons by using additive transitivity property. Only the least 1 n − comparison judgments are required in which experts can compare any row, column or diagonal on a level that contains n criteria. The proposed method not only makes sufficiently using of the provided preference information, but also maintains the experts' consistency and avoids checking the consistency of linguistic preference relations.
Decisions involve many intangibles that need to be traded off. To do that, they have to be measured along side tangibles whose measurements must also be evaluated as to, how well, they serve the objectives of the decision maker. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a theory of measurement through pairwise comparisons and relies on the judgements of experts to derive priority scales. It is these scales that measure intangibles in relative terms. The comparisons are made using a scale of absolute judgements that represents, how much more, one element dominates another with respect to a given attribute. The judgements may be inconsistent, and how to measure inconsistency and improve the judgements, when possible to obtain better consistency is a concern of the AHP. The derived priority scales are synthesised by multiplying them by the priority of their parent nodes and adding for all such nodes. An illustration is included.. He is internationally recognised for his decision-making process, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and its generalisation to network decisions, the Analytic Network Process (ANP). He won the Gold Medal from the International Society for Multicriteria Decision Making for his contributions to this field. His work is in decision making, planning, conflict resolution and in neural synthesis.
Virtual integration (VI) offers a way to make manufacturing systems more agile and competitive. VI integrates the production resources of many manufacturing systems (partners) efficiently, and that leads to a rapid response to market changes. Based on the VI concept these partners throughout the world will form a virtual enterprise (VE). Thus to select partners is the essential and the most important issue. The main objective of this paper is to develop a partner selection and production-distribution planning with the novel partner selection model, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology, multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) and integer programming (IP), for the VI with multiple criteria. The AHP and MAUT methods are use to assess and set weights for each partner candidate and the IP model applies these weights to find the optimal partners from the potential ones and provide the suitable production-distribution plan to the elective partners. Finally, a case study has been provided to substantiate a feasible quality solution of the proposed model.
This study provides a method to solve the incomplete linguistic preference relations under multi-criteria decision making. The method uses simple calculation and can speed up the process of comparison and selection of alternative. Decision-making experts obtain the matrix by choosing a finite and fixed set of alternatives and set a pairwise comparison based on their different preferences and knowledge. The method considers only n-1 judgments, whereas the traditional analytic hierarchy approach takes n(n -1)/2 judgments in a preference matrix with n elements. By using the method described above, this study evaluates the ERP system suppliers.
The vendor selection process has undergone significant changes during the past twenty years. These include increased quality guidelines, improved computer communications, and increased technical capabilities. Given radical changes in the purchasing selection process, it is appropriate to review the past research and to determine its relevance to the supplier selection decision. This paper reviews, annotates, and classfies 74 related articles which have appeared since 1966. Specific attention is given to the criteria and analytical methods used in the vendor selection process. In response to the increased interest in Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing strategies, and analysis of JIT's impact on vendor selection is also presented. Finally, conclusions and potential areas for future research are presented.
This paper presents a fuzzy multi-criteria analysis approach for selecting of planning and design (P&D) alternatives in public office building. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method is used to determine the weightings for evaluation criteria among decision makers, including owners group, users group and experts group. The subjectivity and vagueness in the alternatives selection process is dealt with by using fuzzy numbers for linguistic terms. Incorporated the decision makers' attitude towards preference, a crisp overall performance value is obtained for each alternative based on the concept of Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision Making (FMCDM). A case study consisting of five alternatives, solicited from a public works agency in Taiwan, illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Little attention is given in the literature to decisions on the appropriate selection of suppliers, and on assigning order quantities to these suppliers, in the case of multiple sourcing, with multiple criteria and with suppliers’ capacity constraints. Only a few mathematical programming models to analyse such decisions have been published to date, and these have tended to consider only net price as the cost of purchasing, although the costs of transportation, ordering and storage may be significantly important to the decision. In this paper a mixed integer non-linear programming model is presented to solve the multiple sourcing problem, which takes into account the total cost of logistics, including net price, storage, transportation and ordering costs. Buyer limitations on budget, quality, service, etc. can also be considered in the model. An algorithm is proposed to solve the model, and the model is illustrated using a numerical example.