Browsing by Author "Banaitis, Audrius"

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    A composite index to measure sustainability of supply chain management in construction companies
    (2024-08-16) Cataldo, Ieva; Banaitiene, Nerija; Banaitis, Audrius
    Companies in the construction sector are increasingly aware of the importance and challenges of sustainability. In recent years, construction companies have introduced some sustainability initiatives and have embraced the concept of sustainability indicators. However, measuring a company’s performance on a wide range of sustainability indicators is challenging. Integration of supply chain sustainability indicators is required. This article presents a methodology for easily consolidating existing supply chain indicators into a single analysis that requires minimal resources. First, the list of 38 sustainability indicators of the supply chain was defined and divided into 7 sustainability groups. The experts were then asked to rank the sustainability groups and the supply chain sustainability indicators within each group according to their importance using the rank sum weighting method. The survey questionnaire was distributed to the respondents via paper or email to 24 academics and top/middle managers of construction companies. Global normalized weights were employed to determine the final indicator rankings. For normalization, target values were suggested for each indicator. Finally, a composite sustainability index for a construction company’s supply chain was developed. The developed composite sustainability index provides a global view of sustainable supply chain management in construction companies, allowing supply chain indicators to be related to their objectives. The developed composite index can be used by supply chain managers in construction companies to assess their organization’s contribution to supply chain sustainability.
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    An expanded conceptualization of “smart” cities: adding value with fuzzy cognitive maps
    (Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2019-03-15) Miguel, Bárbara P.; Ferreira, Fernando A. F.; Banaitis, Audrius; Banaitienė, Nerija; Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, Ieva; Falcão, Pedro F.; Ekonomická fakulta
    The world’s rapidly growing population is an issue to be taken seriously. Its consequences could be dramatic if the required steps are not taken. Concerns about this problem have led to the creation of “smart” cities, which promote improvements in citizens’ quality of life through a combination of new technologies and environmentally sustainable practices. For these cities to be truly “smart”, they need to be evaluated in order to understand the areas in which interventions are necessary to make these cities economically stable and environmentally sustainable. In this regard, various studies have sought to understand which indicators should be considered in assessments of smart cities and how this process should be conducted. Thus far, however, researchers have found that using “loose” indicators, which measure only some areas of these cities, is insufficient. That said, this study proposes the use of fuzzy cognitive maps to analyze the dynamics behind smart cities’ components. Grounded in intensive group meetings with a panel of experts in different dimensions of these cities, the method applied produced a well-informed, process-oriented framework that contains the characteristics and components that should be assessed in this type of city. Specifically, after a fuzzy cognitive map was constructed based on the direct involvement of the expert participants, six main clusters were extracted as key components in the development of smart cities. These clusters were: people; planning and environments; technology; infrastructure and materials; services; and transportation and mobility. The results also facilitate an improved understanding of smart cities’ cause-and-effect relationships and better strategic planning by urban planners and city administrators. The implications, advantages, and limitations of the proposed framework are also presented.
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    INTEGRATED APPROACH OF FUZZY MULTI-ATTRIBUTE DECISION MAKING AND DATA MINING FOR CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION
    (Technická Univerzita v Liberci, ) Ray, Manidatta; Ray, Mamata; Muduli, Kamalakanta; Banaitis, Audrius; Kumar, Anil; Ekonomická fakulta
    This research work focuses on integrating the multi attribute decision making with data mining in a fuzzy decision environment for customer relationship management. The main objective is to analyse the relation between multi attribute decision making and data mining considering a complex problem of ordering customers segments, which is based on four criteria of customer’s life time value, viz. length (L), recency (R), frequency (F) and monetary value (M). The proposed integrated approach involves fuzzy C-means (FCM) cluster analysis as data mining tool. The experiment conducted using MATLAB 12.0 for identifying eight clusters of customers. The two multi attribute decision making tools i.e., fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) are used for ranking these identified clusters. The applicability of the integrated decision making technique is also demonstrated in this paper considering the case of Indian retail sector. This research collected responses from nine experts from Indian retail industry regarding their perception of relative importance of four criteria of customer life value and evaluated weights of each criterion using fuzzy AHP. Transaction data of 18 months of the case retail store was analysed to segment 1,600 customers into eight clusters using fuzzy c-means clustering analysis technique. Finally, these eight clusters were ranked using fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution). The findings of this research could be helpful for firms in identifying the more valuable customers for them and allocate more resources to satisfy them. The findings will be also helpful in developing different loyalty program strategies for customers of different clusters.
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    Key Performance Indicators for Adopting Sustainability Practices in Footwear Supply Chains
    (Technická Univerzita v Liberci, ) Moktadir, Md. Abdul; Mahmud, Yead; Banaitis, Audrius; Sarder, Tusher; Khan, Mahabubur Rahman; Ekonomická fakulta
    The footwear industry has contributed notably to different countries’ economic development. Therefore, it needs to focus on operational excellence in order to achieve a sustainable level of development. Achieving sustainability in the footwear industry, however, is a complex task since various issues are involved in the footwear manufacturing process. Currently, in order to see how firms can sustain their place in the competitive global business environment, researchers and practitioners are giving special attention to operational excellence in the footwear manufacturing industry. Operational excellence is a business term that indicates the actual performance of an organization. To make the supply chain agile, resilient, and sustainable, it is imperative that firms incorporate sustainable practices in the footwear industry, and operational excellence can help in this regard. The sustainability of the footwear industry can be examined by using a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, identifying and examining the KPIs for adopting sustainable practices in the footwear supply chain is a very important task. There is still a knowledge gap in research on the KPIs for attaining sustainability in the footwear industry. To fill in this knowledge gap, this study contributes to the existing literature by identifying and assessing the KPIs by using a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method named the best-worst method (BWM). This study uses a previous study to identify some relevant KPIs, some of which were included in the assessment process based on footwear industry experts’ feedback. After finalizing the relevant KPIs, BWM was utilized to find the most important KPIs for adopting sustainability practices in the footwear industry’s supply chains. The findings of this study reveal that the KPIs “quality production”, “timely order processing” and “accuracy of moulding” received the first three positions in the rankings we performed. The results of this study will help practitioners, industry experts, and decision-makers to find out a pathway for easily adopting sustainability practices in the footwear supply chains.
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    MANAGING COMMUNICATION AND PARTICIPATION IN CANARY ISLAND FIRMS
    (Technická Univerzita v Liberci, ) Acosta Rubio, Zamira; Febles Acosta, Jaime; Banaitis, Audrius; Ferreira, Fernando A. F.; Ekonomická fakulta
    Business organizations and management encompass a wide range of aspects requiring research and analysis. Two key issues are communications management and employee participation promotion within firms. This study focused on the variables of communication and participation in organizational structure, business decision making, transmission of orders, supervision, and control in small and micro-enterprises in the Canary Islands, Spain. The research examined the two variables’ ability to generate increased involvement in and employee identification with their firm. The analytical framework applied sought to investigate Canarian managers’ criteria and priorities regarding using communication and participation as management tools. The methodology included the Rasch analysis technique. The study analyses seven variables considered relevant in relation to communication that are communication between management and workers, fluid and informal communication, use of information technology in internal communication, access of all workers to new information technology, linking/relationship systems between units of the same level, linking/relationship systems between units of different levels and the existence of information disseminated as a tool. Likewise, among the variables related to participation, twelve variables recognized as relevant in the literature are analysed. These variables are setting specific objectives for workers, individual initiative, cooperation, decentralization of decision making, control, participation in decision making, participation in setting objectives, workers' autonomy in decision making when carrying out their work, initiative in their work, control of their work, commitment and involvement of managers in daily work and delegation of authority to lower levels. The predominance of small businesses, in many cases managed by their owners, allows us to appreciate a vertical communication based on direct supervision, from top to bottom. The results reveal a poorly balanced combination of communication and participation systems in Canarian firms. These marked imbalances have consequences for managers’ coordination mechanisms and potential for effectively managing their firms.
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    A NOVEL SORTING METHOD TOPSIS-SORT: AN APPLICATION FOR TEHRAN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY EVALUATION
    (Technická Univerzita v Liberci, ) Faraji Sabokbar, Hassanali; Hosseini, Ali; Banaitis, Audrius; Banaitiene, Nerija; Ekonomická fakulta
    Many real-life problems are multi-objective by nature that requires evaluation of more than one criterion, therefore MCDM has become an important issue. In recent years, many MCDM methods have been developed; the existing approaches have been improved and extended. Multi criteria decision analysis has been regarded as a suitable set of methods to perform sustainability evaluations. Among numerous MCDM methods developed to solve real-life decision problems, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) continues to work satisfactorily in diverse application areas. In this paper, a novel sorting method (TOPSIS-Sort) based on the classic TOPSIS method is presented. In the TOPSIS-Sort approach an outranking relation is used for sorting purposes. The proposed approach uses characteristic profi les for defi ning the classes and outranking relation as the preference model. Application of the proposed approach is demonstrated by classifying 22 districts of Tehran into fi ve classes (but none of the districts fi ts into Classes 4 and 5), representing areas with different levels of environmental quality. An analysis and assessment of the environmental conditions in Tehran helps to identify the districts with the poor environmental quality. Priority should be given to these areas to maintain and improve the quality of environment. The results obtained by the TOPSIS-Sort give credence to its success, because the results of sorting confi rm our and specialists’ evaluation of the districts. This research provides appropriate results with respect to the development of sorting models in the form of outranking relations. The model, proposed by this study, is applicable to the other outranking methods such as ELECTRE, PROMETHEE, etc.