Assessing the quality of service for drinking water supplies in rural settings: A synthetic index approach.

In rural settings, the presence of water supply infrastructure does not guarantee that people will have access to dependable and high-quality drinking water. To evaluate deficiencies, an assessment of quality of service of rural drinking water supply systems (RDWSS) should be examined from a multi-criteria perspective, one that integrates economic, technical, administrative, and operational components of supplying water, which includes a variety of stakeholders to integrate their preferences in the development of a synthetic index. In this study, we followed a pioneering approach to evaluate the quality of service for RDWSS based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Monte Carlo simulations. We empirically applied the approach to 40 RDWSS in Chile. The weights of a set of 14 performance indicators were allocated by representatives of the communities that manage the RDWSS and experts on technical and administrative issues revelling the different preferences of decision-makers. We found that there are significant differences in the quality of service provided by the RDWSS evaluated. The information provided by the synthetic indicator would be very helpful in supporting decision makers needing to prioritize investments among drinking water supplies in rural settings.

Critical Success Factors of a Drug Traceability System for Creating Value in a Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC).

The general objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the critical success factors required for the adoption of a system to create value for pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders, and the pharmaceutical supply network as a whole, by using a multi-perspective framework that combines elements of the technology-organization-environment (TOE) contexts for enterprises. The methodology is based on a literature review and expert interviews following the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). This paper identifies and prioritizes 18 critical success factors from three categories: technological, organizational, and environmental. From a practical point of view, this research contributes to the literature by providing expert insight on the topic of drug traceability, especially in terms of how possible values can be captured by companies.

Energy Efficiency in the Food Industry: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract Governments and private companies have increased efforts to identify effective actions for improving energy efficiency in manufacturing processes. The objective of this work is to improve the decision-making process by increasing the quality of information related to energy indicators in the food industry. This research involves developing a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify energy efficiency indicators in the food industry, which serve as inputs for a sectoral evaluation based on multicriteria techniques. The SLR identified six criteria evaluated by food industry experts, which form the proposed basis for evaluating the performance of related sectors. These criteria are: benchmarks, key performance indicators, framework, monitoring, ISO 50001, and information communication technologies (ICTs) in sectoral evaluations. The criteria were evaluated by experts using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which prioritizes the most important food industry issues using an evaluation scale. Weights were attributed to each issue and positioned according to the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) to evaluate each sector by the identified criteria. The evaluated criteria are applicable to the three sectors surveyed, with emphasis on the beverage sector. Among the evaluated criteria, ICTs were highlighted by Industry 4.0 as a concern for the food sector.