Achieving customer satisfaction requires seamless collaboration and coordination across the value chain of suppliers, manufacturers, regulators, logistics service providers, and retailers. At the same time, disruption in the supply chain causes increased costs, and, more importantly, lost revenue. Therefore, organizations are looking for transparency, flexibility, and agility in their supply chains. The internet of things and blockchain, as a part of efficient technologies in supply chains of organizations, build trust, transparency, and consensus among all stakeholders, creating benefits for every actor and ensuring flexible business outcomes .Due to the increasing importance of these technologies in today's world and the integration of these tools in all business processes, in this research, the dimensions, components, and vital indicators affecting the creation of a smart and efficient supply chain with high reliability and has been assessed as having strong resilience. Finally, the structure of a smart supply chain is shown by the interaction of these transformative technologies. Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.

There are numerous models for solving the efficiency evaluation in data envelopment analysis (DEA) with fuzzy input and output data. However, because of the limitation of those strategies, they cannot be implemented for solving fully fuzzy DEA (FFDEA). Furthermore, in real-world problems with imprecise data, fuzziness is not sufficient to consider, and the reliability of the information is also very vital. To overcome these flaws, this paper presented a new method for solving the fully fuzzy DEA model where all parameters are Z-numbers. The new approach is primarily based on crisp linear programming and has a simple structure. Moreover, it is proved that the only existing method to solve FFDEA with Z-numbers is not valid. An example is also presented to illustrate the efficiency of our proposed method and provide an explanation for the content of the paper.

An innovative framework is introduced for the enhancement of efficiency within emergency departments (EDs), utilizing an integration of simulation and fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM). A discrete event simulation (DES) model was developed, capturing the intricate dynamics characteristic of ED operations with high fidelity. This model's integration with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality (ELECTRE) method, within a fuzzy context, facilitated a critical evaluation and optimization of the decision-making processes inherent in EDs. The incorporation of these methodologies yielded significant improvements in patient flow and service quality, highlighting the substantial potential of marrying simulation with fuzzy MCDM to achieve operational excellence in healthcare settings. The study stands as a contribution to the enhancement of ED operations, offering a versatile methodology with potential for adaptation across diverse healthcare environments. This approach underscores the imperative of employing a nuanced, integrated strategy to navigate the complexities of healthcare service delivery, ensuring an equilibrium between operational efficiency and the quality of patient care.

In the event of natural disasters, relief distribution is the most challenging problem of emergency transportation. What is important in response to disaster is victims’ relief in disaster areas with the quick distribution of vital commodity. In this regard, damage to infrastructure (e.g., roads) can make trouble in designing a distribution network. So, this paper considers a problem using a three-stage approach. In the first stage, pre-processing of model inputs is done through an artificial neural fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) followed by investigating the safest route for each cluster using of decision-making techniques and graph theory. In the second stage, a heterogeneous multi-depots multi-mode vehicle routing problem is formulated for minimizing the transportation time and maximize the reliability. Finally, since the routing problem is NP-hard, two multi-objective meta-heuristic algorithms, namely non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and multi-objective firefly algorithm (MOFA), are proposed to obtain the optimal solution and compared their performance through a set of randomly generated test problems. The results show that for this routing problem, the MOFF gives better solutions in comparison to NSGA-II and performs well in terms of accuracy and solution time.

Strategy is the main source of long-term growth for organizations, and if it is not successfully implemented, even if appropriate ones are adopted, the process is futile. The balanced scorecard which focuses on four aspects such as growth and learning, internal processes, customer, and financial is considered as a comprehensive framework for assessing performance and the progress of the strategy. Moreover, the data envelopment analysis is one of the best mathematical methods to compute the efficiency of organizations. The combination of these two techniques is a significant quantitative measurement with respect to the organization’s performance. However, in the real world, determinate and indeterminate information exists. Henceforth, the indeterminate issues are inescapable and must be considered in the performance evaluation. Neutrosophic number is a helpful tool for dealing with information that is indeterminate and incomplete. In this paper, we propose a new model of data envelopment analysis in the neutrosophic number environment. Furthermore, we attempt to combine the new model with the balanced scorecard to rank different decision-making units. Finally, the proposed method is illustrated by an empirical study involving 20 banking branches. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed method and indicate that the model has practical outcomes for decision-makers.

Data envelope analysis (DEA) is an approach to estimate the relative efficiency of decision making units (DMUs). Several studies were conducted in order to prioritize efficient units and some useful models such as cross-efficiency matrix (CEM) were presented. Besides, a number of DEA models with interval data have been developed and ranking DMUs with such data was solved. However, presenting an obtained crisp data derived interval data is a critical problem, so that many researches were implemented so as to compute weights and averaging the interval data. In this paper we propose the new algorithm to find more suitable weight applying a data mining approach of DMU’s data. For this purpose, we employed clustering and pair-wise comparison matrix on given relative efficiency from CEM. Results indicate there is meaningful different between efficiency of DMUs with lower bound and that of DMUs with upper bound.