State-of-the-art sustainability analysis methodologies for efficient decision support in green production operations

Figures & data

Figure 1 Four key stages of LCA process.

Figure 2 Life cycle methods to support sustainable production operations decision making.

Figure 3 Relationships between the different types of MCDA method.

Table 1 Comparison between the MCDA methods.

Analysis methods	Key elements	Strengths	Weaknesses	Selected references
AHP	Multi-criteria and multi-attributes hierarchy; pairwise comparison; graphical representation	Can handle situations in which decision maker's subjective judgements constitute a key part of the decision-making process	Relationships between decision factors are not considered; inconsistency of the pairwise judgements; cannot deal with uncertainty and vagueness	Saaty (1980) and Anderson et al. (2009)
ANP	Control network with sub-networks of influence	Allows interaction and feedback	Inconsistency of the pairwise judgements; cannot handle situations in which decision makers can only give interval value judgements or cannot give values at all	Saaty and Vargas (2006) and Dou and Sarkis (2010)
Fuzzy set theory	Mathematical representation; handle uncertainty, vagueness and imprecision; grouping data with loosely defined boundaries	Can solve real-world decision problems with imprecision variables	Lack of a systematic weighting system	Beskese et al. (2004) and Mehrabad and Anvari (2010)
Fuzzy AHP/ANP	Fuzzy membership functions together with priority weights of attributes	Combined strengths of fuzzy set theory and AHP/ANP	Time consuming; complexity	Kahraman et al. (2010)

Table 2 Comparison of different MCDA methods used to support decision making in SSCM.

Decision problems	Evaluation parameters	Decision criteria	Analysis methods	References
Optimal product recovery decision	Best EOL treatments alternatives	Network costs, energy use, waste volume	LCA, PLC and OLC	Neto et al. (2010)
Outsourcing – ERP vendor selection	Vendor overall performance	Market leadership, functionality, quality, price, implementation speed, interface with other systems, international orientation	Fuzzy AHP	Kahraman et al. (2010)
Pre-selection of supplier	To maximise the supply chain performance	Cost, quality, service and reliability	Fuzzy AHP	Sen et al. (2010)
Production outsourcing decision	Country alternatives	Total cost (production, shipping, inventory carrying); total risks (economic, social, public safety)	Fuzzy set theory	Kumar et al. (2010)
Inventory decisions – optimal system policy	Sensitivity analysis	Just-in-time delivery, cleaning and disassembly cost, remanufacturing cost, convertibility cost	LCA, OLC analyses	Yuan and Gao (2010)
High-value components supplier decisions	Supplier overall performance	Cost, quality, IT, human resource, time	AHP	Wang et al. (2009)
Joint venture and strategic alliance decision	Buyer–supplier relationship	Cost, quality, delivery time, supply chain transparency	Fuzzy AHP	Lee (2009)
Supplier selection	Evaluate the supplier's overall performance	45 criteria under three clusters: (1) business structure, (2) manufacturing capability and (3) quality system of the supplier	ANP	Gencer and Gurpinar (2007)
Integration in oil and gas supply chain – innovation evaluating	Evaluation of complex and novel technologies for sustainable development	Economic, environmental and social sustainability	LCA, PLC	Matos and Hall (2007)
Selecting third-party reverse logistics providers	Evaluate the provider's overall capability	Recycling, reuse and remanufacturing capability; repair, testing and product servicing capability; return shipment capability	Fuzzy AHP	Bottani and Rizzi (2006)
Green supply chain decisions – partner, technology and organisational practice	Evaluate organisational performance	Cost, quality, time, flexibility, total quality environmental management standards	ANP, PLC and OLC	Sarkis (2003)
Transportation decisions	Evaluate alternative fuel vehicles	Cost, sustainability (renewable source)	AHP	Byrne and Polonsky (2001)

Figure 4 Classification of sustainability analysis methodologies and their applications (corresponding section numbers are in brackets).

Figure 5 Application areas of LCA and MCDA methodologies.

Figure 6 Proportional distributions of the sustainability analysis methods.

Figure 7 Distribution of the publications over last decade.

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