The purpose of this paper is developing a method to choose an appropriate Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) using Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MADM) for a dairy company. Among different methods, the grey group TOPSIS and fuzzy group VIKOR methods were selected. TOPSIS is a Technique for order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution and VIKOR technique is a method based on compromise programming. The data in this article were gathered using the interviews with the company’s managers and elites in the field of maintenance. Then, out of five types of maintenance software, the best ones were selected using these two techniques and finally the results were compared with each other. In the selection process, 13 sub-criteria were introduced under 5 main criteria. These criteria were selected out of a huge number of criteria using the studies of others and by consulting with the company’s managers and experts. We have tried to make the choices in a way that the majority of aspects could be considered. This paper helps the maintenance managers in decision-making related to choosing the CMMS software in uncertainty environment. Using two different fuzzy and grey approaches and comparing the results can lead to appropriate selection and improve the confidence in decision-making. Maintenance planning issues are among the important issues in industrial production systems. Maintenance systems have basically made remarkable progress in recent years. The increase of companies’ competitive pressure on the one hand and the close relationship between maintenance activities and companies’ core activities, on the other hand, have encouraged companies to use the software in order to manage their maintenance activities.

The problem of interaction of rod centralizers of casing with a well wall is considered. The paper aims at studying the ways of fastening of centralizer’s ends on the parameters of its rigidity and strength. Knowledge of these characteristics is necessary for the assessment of casing column drift and well completion quality. For simulation of the working links of the centralizers, the classical linear theory of smooth rods, rigid along the axis and elastic on bending is used. Stress-strain state of bow-type rod with six different variants of fastening under conditions of point contact is studied. The analytical relations between the contact force and the mutual approach of the column and the well wall, as well as the expressions for the admissible contact loads, are established. The way of fastening the rod significantly influences these characteristics; in particular, the fact of the presence or absence of freedom of mutual movement of its ends along the pipe is decisive. The engineering formulas, which serve as two-side estimations of the rigidity and strength of the real structures of centering devices, are obtained. A comparative analysis of mechanical properties of centralizers has been conducted.

According to connoisseurs, cultural system is encountering a fully new space in future decades and cultural indicators will be exposed by some dangers; for the same reason, cultural observation activities in management dialogue of Iran are emphasized; the concept of “observation” in Iran is facing with challenges including being far from the concepts of futures studies and the focus on “cultural indicators monitoring” while cultural engineering needs foresight and identification of affecting progressive and deterring factors on the culture. The present study aims at providing alternatives to design an observation system by considering the monitoring and scanning simultaneously to bring out strategic and futurist vision for cultural organizations. To this end, the solution space and morphological field of observation (parameters and values) by using MA/Carma Viewer software package is designed based on the literature review and forming a five-member expert group and specialized conversations. Upon Internal Consistency Assessment of parameters and by considering some values as drivers, Parameters Activity Check was conducted to study the reactions by other parameters and values. After sense-making and proper understanding of the model behavior, an Inference and “What-If” model were devised; some configurations were studied and provided in order to aware a part of proper alternatives for designing a cultural observation system (two scenarios). Scenario selection is different due to contingencies and conditions of executing the process as well as the users’ needs and goals in cultural observation system and cultural organizations can make decisions and design detailed observation systems by using morphological models, solution space and alternatives provided in the present study and depended on their goals and needs.

The low cycle fatigue (LCF) resistance of two different metal matrix composite (MMC) of AA6063 with 2% and 8% by volume silicon carbide (SiCp) particles having particulate size of 37 micron (400 mesh) at room temperature condition has been evaluated under fully reversed strain control testing. The influence of volume fraction (2 and 8 vol%) and strain ratio (R= -1) are examined. Increasing the content of SiCp results in the degradation of strain control fatigue properties while the transition fatigue life increases. Fatigued samples are examined using scanning electron microscopy in order to understand the failure mechanism (SEM). Microstructural features and failure mechanisms studied through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed low cycle fatigue failure nature.

This paper presents a new multi-objective model for a vehicle routing problem under a stochastic uncertainty. It considers traffic point as an inflection point to deal with the arrival time of vehicles. It aims to minimize the total transportation cost, traffic pollution, customer dissatisfaction and maximizes the reliability of vehicles. Moreover, resiliency factors are included in the model to increase the flexibility of the system and decrease the possible losses that may impose on the system. Due to the NP-hardness of the presented model, a meta-heuristic algorithm, namely Simulated Annealing (SA) is developed. Furthermore, a number of sensitivity analyses are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed model. Lastly, the foregoing meta-heuristic is compared with GAMS, in which the computational results demonstrate an acceptable performance of the proposed SA.

Search for lost or hidden things is a very interesting and complicated issue. This problem concentrates on the study of how to exploit resources to discover a target with unknown location. On the other hand, search problem may be formulated as a difficult decision problem because it is affected by various crucial decision factors such as search cost, search time, the probability of discovering, etc. In this paper, a new multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach on the basis of best-worst method (BWM) and simple additive weighting (SAW) is suggested to rank potential locations of lost or hidden targets. BWM is a novel subjective weighting technique and compared to the most common subjective method, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), requires fewer comparisons and gives more trustworthy outcomes. In this paper, BWM is used to gain the criteria weights and SAW is employed to rank the locations regarding the decision factors. This study demonstrates that BWM is easier and works better than AHP, also perfect agreement in the results of COPRAS, TOPSIS and SAW is observed. The suggested approach is very easy as well as flexible and provides an efficient method which can be developed to tackle other decision problems.

Inconel 825 is high nickel-chromium-based superalloy which retains its mechanical properties and exhibits good corrosion and oxidation resistance at elevated temperature. Inconel 825 is extensively used for making aircraft engine parts like combustor casing and turbine blades in aero space industry. This research proposed the Response Surface Methodology with GRA to optimize multiple responses during Wire-cut EDM of Inconel 825. At optimum combination of input parameters i.e. A4B1C1D5E4F2, increase in MRR from 36.13 mm2/min to 41.822 mm2/min, decrease in SR from 2.842μm to 2.445μm and decrease in WWR from 0.01832 to 0.01758 was obtained. Experimental results showed that pulse-on time, wire feed, pulse-off time, and peak current significantly affected the MRR, and surface integrity of specimen and electrode with the formation of craters, pockmarks, debris, micro cracks, and recast layer. The optimal parametric combination obtained from the present study will be advantageous for working on high strength; high thermal conductivity and low melting point materials like nickel alloys.

Tourism industry is one of the most important parts of economic development. It can create job either directly or through stimulating other economic sectors. Therefore, it is important for policy makers to determine the best places with good potentials for tourism development. Fars province has been the center of civilization and the origin of the Iranian literature and mysticism celebrities and could be a potential investment of tourism. However, this province does not have the infrastructure required to accommodate tourists, especially during holiday seasons. This study ranks different cities located in the Fras province having the necessary potential for investment in the tourism sector by using the numerical taxonomy in terms of 12 indicators. The research population includes 29 cities in this province based on the devision of 2016. The necessary data are collected from Directorate General of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism in Fars province. It is found that the cities of Shiraz, Marvdasht, Firouzabad, Sepidan, and Kazerun were the best cities for tourism investment, respectively.

The growth in renewable energy study has resulted in the expansion of mini-grids projects across different communities in developing countries. However, there is a need to ensure that a suitable business model is selected during the provision of mini-grid services in developing countries. This study presents a framework for ranking mini-grid business models. The proposed framework is a multi-criteria multi-decision (MCMD) making tool. The framework combines Criteria Importance Through Inter-criteria Correlation (CRITIC), TOPSIS (Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and WASPAS (weighted aggregated sum product assessment) methods. An interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs) is used to convert the responses from decision-makers into crisp values. The applicability of the proposed framework was tested using Nigeria as a case study. Four potential mini-grid (private, government, community-based and public-private) business models for the case study were ranked using twelve criteria. The average values for the subjective and objective weight methods showed that electricity traffic and energy demand were the least and the most important criteria, respectively, for selecting a mini-grid business model. The results obtained showed that the best mini-grid model was a private model using a TOPSIS framework. A WASPAS framework ranked the community-based business model as the best model. This study results showed mini-grid business models in developing countries should be either private or community-based business models.

Created opportunities are refered as the opportunities in which none of the supply and demand parties exists clearly and obviously one or both of them must be created. Therefore, several economic inventions should take place in marketing, franchising, etc. so that opportunity can be created. This perception of opportunity deals with the creation of new markets. In the meantime, identifying some entrepreneurial actions influencing on the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities can provide backgrounds for the formation and empowering the opportunity creation. In this paper, some basic ideas about the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities and the evolution of opportunity creation theories are examined. Then effective actions on the opportunity creation are identified. Finally, the structure of the investigated actions is examined using the DEMATLE Method. The results which were according to the opinions of 15 experts of entrepreneurship showed that leadership, decision making, and strategy actions influence other entrepreneurial actions.