A growing number of companies treat "sustainability" as an important objective in their strategy. Sustainable and green suppliers increase efficiency by reducing costs and waste in industries. Sustainable and green supplier selection is a critically important factor in moving forward along the path of sustainability. A fuzzy R-method is proposed in this paper based on ranking the fuzzy numbers of alternative suppliers and criteria. Triangular fuzzy membership function and different fuzzy scales are presented to demonstrate and validate the proposed method. Fuzzy composite scores are generated, and these scores are converted into crisp forms to evaluate the alternative suppliers. The novelty of the proposed method is that it is simple, can deal with qualitative and quantitative criteria of supplier selection, and requires less computational effort for evaluating and ranking the green and sustainable suppliers in fuzzy group decision-making situations. The weights of the criteria and alternative suppliers are generated using a simple equation and hence there is no need to apply different methods for weights generation and ranking. Furthermore, this method does not require normalization of the data. Two realistic group decision-making problems of green and sustainable supplier selection to test the method. Sensitivity analysis for the proposed method is also conducted to check the consistency of the proposed method to different weights of the criteria. The proposed method is effective, robust, and competitive to the existing multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods of sustainable supplier selection.

Manufacturing facilities are systems that require adequate designing, maintenance and reservations for improvement in the future. Layouts need to be effectively designed to reduce operating to the minimum. Computer simulation is a process of investigating and analyzing the behavior of production processes for effective decision-making using computers to generate solutions that will positively impact short, and long-term planning of the Plants and save costs of real-life implementation. This study investigated a 500Kg capacity shea nut processing plant using FlexSim©. The findings from the initial model were not effective and experienced bottlenecks in workstations (Roaster and Milling) sections, poor cycle and lead times coupled with manual labor, Plant efficiency was 35.7%. However, the Improvement Layout Model was able to address these bottlenecks, the results showed the Plant efficiency increased to 83.3%, shorter lead and cycle times, improved machine utilization, and throughput capacity of the Plant. The results were an indication of conformance to the layout design developed to aid in enhancing the traditional shea nut processing that is largely dominated by traditional processing practices.

The trend toward sustainable city development is associated with intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Automation, efficiency, safety, security, and cost-effectiveness are critical factors in establishing each aspect of a smart city. Real-time data obtained from ITS play an essential role in improving the level of service of road segments, enhancing road safety, and supporting road users with road circumstances information. Travel time information is applicable in travel time maps, decision makings for traffic congestion, dynamic pricing of the network, emergency relief services, traffic flow monitoring, traffic jams management, and air quality analysis. Travel time on a road segment highly depends on geometrical specifications, environmental and weather conditions, traffic flow, and driving behavior. Due to specific driving behavior and road conditions, the above parameters are not essentially applicable in another region. The present research uses the data collected from loop detectors and License Plate Recognition (LPR) systems to develop a Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) model for Iran’s freeway network (Tehran-Qom Freeway). Because of the large amount of data, the SQL server program was used for creating and organizing the database and the BPR model was calibrated using SPSS statistical software. The results of the BPR model were evaluated with an ANOVA test, indicating that the derived model can estimate the travel time at freeway sections with a %5.2 error for the volume-to-capacity ratio (V/C) of less than 0.8.

The ready-to-wear sector is expanding quickly and already accounts for a significant contribution to Ethiopia's export revenue. Due to its lower labor and investment costs, availability of resources, government assistance, etc. than other sectors, this industry attracts young entrepreneurs from around the nation as investment destinations. However, while investing in the leather industry, there are frequently many more aspects to consider. Again, there are numerous leather investment opportunities in the leathers sector, including handbags, jackets, belts, shoes, gloves, etc. Different sorts of leather items necessitate various levels of capital investment, operator skill sets, and resource requirements, among many other things. Again, based on their capacity for managing businesses, available capital, business location, and other factors, not all investors are in the same position. To assist investors in making decisions on the opening of a new leather industry, this paper presents a FAHP methodology for choosing the best leather item among various possibilities in a fuzzy environment. The methods enable the decision-maker to incorporate language expressions of expert judgment into the evaluation process. Using the suggested process, the ideal leather item is chosen for the launching of a leather industry in Ethiopia under the current circumstances.

The world is increasingly witnessing food insecurity and deteriorating individual and global livelihoods. This study sought to assess the effectiveness of contract farming in the form of command farming in achieving sustainability of maize supply chain in Zimbabwe. A descriptive approach was adopted where a sample of 35 agricultural experts were randomly selected to respond to questionnaires. The researchers also relied on interviews with farmers, the results of which were triangulated with quantitative data to improve the dependability of results. The study shows a positive and significant relationship between command farming and sustainability of the maize supply chain in Mazowe district of Zimbabwe. The study, therefore, recommends the government to invest more in command agriculture to improve productivity and sustainability in the maize sector. It further recommends investment in joint contract farming with agricultural firms and government to improve farming business to sustain the country’s agricultural sector.

During the last decades, environmental crises through energy consumption and economic growth were noticed as a growing concern among researchers. The industrial sector is the main part of economic growth in each country using conservative energy and emitting carbon dioxide that causes global warming. The Paris agreement and Kyoto protocol were two agreements to prevent governments from emitting CO2 freely. Purpose of this research was to investigate the cement industry, steel industry, and automobile industry products’ effects on CO2 emissions in Iran and to rank them according to their measured effects on CO2 emissions. The methodology used in this study was to estimate equations with CO2 emissions as a dependent variable and cement, steel, and automobile industries’ products with ordinary least squares (OLS) and generalized moment method (GMM) approaches. Stationary, Johansen cointegration, Durbin-Watson, Breusch-Godfrey, Chow breakpoint, and normal residual tests were checked. In-sample forecasting was implemented to check the precision of the estimation and an updated ranking was reported as a final result to consider which industry has affected CO2 emissions more than the others per unit of production cost. In conclusion, the cement industry, steel industry, and automobile industry had the most positive effects on CO2 emissions, respectively. This result is suitable to prioritize the industries for enhancing green technology and optimizing industrial production for a more sustainable economy.

Food supply chain disruptions have of recent increased in terms of severity and frequency leading to viability problems for most businesses in related supply chain networks and hunger among millions of human beings. In the extant supply chain literature elements of responsive supply chain such as velocity, versatility, and visibility have been suggested as some of the possible strategies to build supply chain resilience. It has therefore been suggested in this study that these elements’ influence on supply chain resilience is moderated by contract farming as a special form of supplier development. Farming contracts are either production or marketing contracts. Data was collected from a conveniently selected sample of 200 restaurants that use supplier development in the form of contract farming for acquiring critical resources for their operations. A structural equation modelling was used to analyse data related to the direct effects and multi group structural equation modelling was used to assess the moderating effects. The results revealed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the three selected elements of responsive supply chain management and supply chain resilience, and all the hypothesised relationships were moderated by type of farming contracts, with the relationships being stronger under marketing contracts for supply chain velocity, and under production contracts than under marketing contracts for relationships involving versatility and visibility. Therefore, the study recommended that production contracts be used in the fast-food restaurant industry in order to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, and marketing contracts to build supply chain capabilities. This is the first study that has sought to assess the differential utility of different farming contracts through assessing their moderating effects as a build-up on previous research that has already established that supplier development in the form of contract farming leads to supplier development.

Highway accident data analysis provides probability of occurrence of road accidents by associating different accident factors using data mining algorithms. Analysis can be improved by using advanced data mining algorithms that compute relationships with minimum processing time. As accident datasets are very heterogeneous in nature, it is difficult to identify the relationship between critical factors responsible for road accidents without data mining algorithms. In this study, K-modes for clustering and frequent pattern growth algorithms to extract relationships between critical accident factors have been used. The accomplished result concludes better relationships with better accuracy than earlier implemented data mining algorithms and has found meaningful hidden situations that would be beneficial for future work in decreasing the number of highway accidents.

As in today's era firms are looking to sustain while facing multiple challenges. Ultimately talented employees are the backbone of any firm that provides a sustainable competitive position at a global level. The major aspect is to make appropriate strategies to stay effective and efficient. Firms are focused on their strategies of recruitment and selection, training, and leadership capabilities to build up. A sample is collected from top-level management of the pharmaceutical sector sample data is of 320 Professionals from the different pharmaceutical sector of Karachi Pakistan. For Data collection Survey method is adopted with a close-ended Questionnaire. The study reveals the impact of artificial intelligence on competitive advantage. This research finds out certain strategies to be aligned with the mediation of Artificial intelligence to gain sustainable competitive advantage and serial mediation of the talent management process among the pharmaceutical sector of Karachi Pakistan. Talent management and Artificial Intelligence serial mediation aligned with HR practices to gain competitive advantage. As the study indicates that recruitment and selection are positively aligned with Artificial intelligence and serial mediation of talent management, further aspects of talent development and talent retention are directly linked with a competitive advantage as suitable components. This research merely focused on the pharmaceutical sector of Karachi Pakistan and the results generalized on the professionals of this particular sector, while new aspects of HR practices could be linked up with Artificial intelligence that will help to boost and find better insight into other industries.

The concept of green inventory systems is very important for economic growth and development in the era of sustainable development. There is a special need for green inventory systems to identify and manage perishable products since spoilage and deterioration can lead to significant losses of items, which negatively affect the satisfaction of consumers. As perishable products decay continuously (such as vegetables, fruits, milk, juices, frozen foods, baked foods), their demand is adversely affected as well as customers' purchasing decisions. The more realistic assumption is a price-sensitive demand. As well as deterioration rates, perishable products have an expiration date-dependent deterioration rate. Further, inventory holding, and the deterioration of perishables contribute significantly to carbon emissions when operating the inventory system. A carbon tax policy is more flexible and effective when it comes to reducing carbon emissions due to its environmental conscious nature. We develop two sustainable inventory procedures for perishable items based on a practical scenario in which the buyer has a limited storeroom. So, to achieve sustainability goals, a model for inventory management for perishable products based on expiration dates is presented in this paper. We distinguish between two inventory schemes: (i) one that allows shortages and fractional backlogs, and (ii) one that does not allow shortage. In both schemes, both the decay rate and demand function show an upward trend against storage time. Since the decay rate increases with storage time, it is assumed that the cost of storing items is linearly related to storage time. numerical examples along with a real-life case study are presented to validate the inventory schemes after several decision-making findings have been derived.