مجله مدیریت تولید و عملیات
سال یازدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 23، زمستان 1399)

Green Project Management) GPM) includes a set of management actions that enables the identification, evaluation, control, and improvement of the effect of activities on the environment. Accordingly, lean and sustainability can play a significant role in improving and enhancing the quality of the environment. Therefore, this study aims to identify and prioritize activities related to GPM based on lean and sustainability concepts.

Design/methodology/approach:

 First the lean and sustainability criteria have been identified in GPM. Then, the activities in terms of significance - and not in the order of performance - have been prioritized to achieve GPM with lean and sustainable goals in the Parks and Green Space Organization of Isfahan (PGSOI). The data has been obtained through the distribution of questionnaires among experts in the study area in two steps. In the first step, using the Delphi method, lean and sustainability criteria as well as GPM activities in the PGSOI have been identified. Then, in the next step, GPM activities have been prioritized using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

Findings indicated three environmental, social, and processes and procedures criteria as the lean goals. Besides, sustainability goals included three social, economic, and environmental criteria. The priorities of GPM activities in terms of lean and sustainable goals, respectively, included executive activities, activities related to planning, initial activities, monitoring and control, and final activities.

Research limitations/implications:

 This study was conducted in the PGSOI. The lean-sustainable criteria were assumed independent in applying the AHP technique. Managers of PGSOI must consider executive activities, activities related to planning, initial activities, monitoring and control, and final activities, to have a lean-sustainable based GPM.

Originality/value: 

The novelty and originality of the methodology lies in the fact that the activities are identified and prioritized based on the three concepts of greenness, leanness, and sustainability in the projects of PGSOI.

This study aims to investigate the identification and evaluation of potential risks affecting projects and select projects based on the level of risk in the project-based organizations.

Design/methodology/approach:

 After organizing a decision-making team and identification of potential risks influencing projects, the risks have been weighted by the VIKOR method. Then, potential risks in projects have been received by project managers and the final risks of each project have been estimated.

Findings indicate that the application of this method may invoke as a useful management tool for selecting projects with acceptable risk in a multi-project organization.

Research limitations/implications:

 The findings are limited to the current projects of the focused company. Also, the results are limited to the potential risks identified and the evaluations related to comments and the VIKOR approach for the considered time interval.

Practical implications:

 One of the most important management challenges in project-based organizations is the selection of projects with acceptable risk of implementation. Risk Analysis in portfolio management is a strategy that helps managers in selecting, supporting, and managing a set of projects.

Originality/value: 

The focus of Previous studies was mostly on risk identification and prioritization in specific projects. In contrast, the developed approach in this paper can be used as a fast and reliable method for selecting projects in a multi-project organization based on risk management.

This paper aims to propose an approach for selecting outsourcing strategies in the two-level bidirectional service supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach:

 Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used for selecting two factors that have maximum influence on service outsourcing decisions. The selected factors have been integrated with quadrant analysis for selecting outsourcing strategies. Two questionnaires have been developed to indicate the importance and correlation of objectives of outsourcing and choosing factors that have an influence on service outsourcing decisions in the selected service supply chain of a hospital in Isfahan, Iran. Questionnaires have been fulfilled by senior managers and supervisors in a hospital.

Findings indicate that customer contact and relative capability position in the process have maximum effect on service outsourcing decisions in the selected service supply chain and when relative capability position in the process is high, it is better for the decision-makers to contribute with other organizations since it provides better situation to discover weaknesses of the organization.Research limitations/implications: The case study was limited only to one type of service supply chain, i.e., a two-level bidirectional service supply chain.

Practical implications: 

Managers of various (industrial and service) sectors by using the proposed model of this research can concentrate on the variables that have more influence on outsourcing the desired processes and choose appropriate supply strategies for their processes in various conditions.Social implications: In this paper, customer contact and relative capability position in the process were found as having a maximum influence on pathology process outsourcing and they were selected for quadrant analysis and defining outsourcing strategies.

Originality/value: 

The uniqueness of the subject of this paper is apparent as no similar research was found in the literature investigating the relationship between different service supply chains types and outsourcing

Given the need to simultaneously implement lean and agile paradigms in the supply chain, managers do not know which of these paradigms practices is in priority. Not knowing this, not only will they fail to apply these paradigms properly, but they will also waste significant financial resources. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the practices of leagile paradigms and their effects on supply chain performance.

Design/methodology/approach: 

Since military products play a key role in national security enhancement, this research has been conducted in the military product supply chain. The research methodology is typically exploratory, mixed, and descriptive. In terms of its purpose, it is applied research based on identifying and searching for practices and the use of interpretive equations. First, the most important and implementable lean and agile practices were identified in the form of importance feasibility analysis (IFA) matrices. Then, using Fuzzy Interpretative Structural Modeling (FISM), a model was proposed to show the logical relationships and hierarchy between paradigms, practices, and their impact on supply chain performance. The data collection tool was a questionnaire completed by industrial and academic experts. The selection of experts was done purposefully.

Findings indicated that out of a total of 100 practices introduced in the previous research for lean and agile supply chains, 21 practices in the lean and agility of the supply chain of military industries were significant and implementable. The final model of this study illustrated the hierarchical relationships between 21 practices and their effect on the key measures of supply chain performance. This model indicated that lean and agile paradigms were intertwined and their simultaneous implementation led to improved supply chain performance. In this model, supplier-related practices played a driving and fundamental role and became a top priority for implementation.

Research limitations/implications: 

The variety of military products in the land, air, and sea areas and a large number of industries in each sector, forced the authors to merely select the land area. Although the results of this study can be used in the air and sea areas, one cannot say that implementation of this study by its presented model will fully lead to the leagility of supply chains of the military industries in air and sea sectors.

Originality/value: 

This is the first study on the supply chain legality in Iran’s military industry, wherein an attempt is being made to apply the two paradigms simultaneously in the supply chain and to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Clustering lean and agile practices based on two measures of significance and feasibility, and defining four strategies for implementing these measures, is a new approach to focus on deploying practices that are currently more feasible. Identifying a significant number of supply chain lean and agile practices (100 practices), and demonstrating the interactions between significant and feasible practices in the supply chain of military products are other innovation aspects of this study.

Organizational excellence models are used as proper instruments for measuring the deployment success of systems in different organizations. The present study attempted to investigate the effect of market orientation besides strategic thinking dimensions on the EFQM model of excellence. In the proposed model, the effect of strategic thinking dimensions including systems thinking, organizational vision, and creativity on the enablers and the results of the EFQM model were investigated. Considerably, market orientation was proposed as a strategic thinking dimension and its effects on enablers and results of the EFQM model were examined.

Design/methodology/approach:

 This study was conducted in a steel company where the EFQM excellence model has been implemented. For investigating the effects of strategic thinking dimensions on the EFQM model, eight hypotheses were designed. These hypotheses were tested based on 189 questionnaires and the concepts of the subject were determined. Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) and Smart PLS 3 software used for data analysis.

The results indicated that the two variables of organizational vision and market orientation had a great effect on the implementation of the EFQM excellence model in the company. Respectively, by strengthening these two issues through training and practical plans, the implementation of the EFQM excellence model can be strengthened.

Practical implications: 

The results of this research can help managers in designing and planning practical measures to successfully implement the EFQM model of excellence. By considering and empowering the organizational vision and market orientations, managers achieve better implementation of the excellence model in the organization.

Originality/value:

 The market orientation is a dimension of strategic thinking which seems to be neglected by previous studies. In this study, the effects of market orientation along with the other dimensions of strategic thinking were investigated on the enablers and results of the excellence model.

This study aims to investigate the influence of known price increases on the inventory model regarding both uniform and an exponential distribution of replenishment intervals with the partial backorder. It examines the optimization of inventory control decisions for deteriorating products considering a known price increase, probabilistic replenishment interval, warehouse capacity constraint, and partial back-ordering.

Design/methodology/approach:

 To obtain the specific inventory order quantity, the problem has been modeled in such a way that the total cost savings function is obtained from the differences in the optimal order policy for both special and regular orders. The two situations discussed in this study are: i) unconstrained problem modeling, and ii) constrained problem. Some computational experiments have been performed to examine the effects of various parameters on cost savings performance. For the constrained problem, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) have been used and their results have been compared in terms of the cost savings values and computation time.

Findings indicated that for the constrained problem, GA has a better performance than PSO. Accordingly, for an unconstrained problem, by using the derivative of the profit function and performing sensitivity analysis, the influence of parameters such as demand, price, holding cost after the price increase, λ in exponential distribution, length of periods in uniform distribution, and deterioration rate on the decision variables including order quantity and the profit were.

 obtained,Practical implications:

 The model’s generated policy is more effective and profitable for retailers when demand and deterioration rate are higher and replenishment periods are decreased.

Originality/value: 

This study completes the previous inventory control models that were under the policy of known price increase and is closer to the real environment by utilizing deteriorating items, capacity constraints, and meta-heuristic approaches.