International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Research

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Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) have successfully been applied in numerous domains to show the relations between essential components in complex systems. In this paper, a novel learning method is proposed to construct FCMs based on historical data and by using meta-heuristic: Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and Tabu Search (TS). Implementation of the proposed method has demonstrated via real data of a purchase system in order to simulate the system’s behavior.

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  Steel market and particularly rod bar market play important roles in economy of countries. Economic systems are considered as complex systems which are sophisticated to be modeled mathematically. One way to model these systems is simulation and use of system dynamics. This paper models rod bar supply chain in Iran using system dynamics. Data of this research is gathered from first hand materials published by governmental sector. In order to modeling relationships between variables, interviews were conducted with experts in Iran Ministry of Commerce. Proposed model explains turbulence of rod bar market during 5 years ago and the fluctuations of its price. In addition, it is examined and confirmed by experts of this market in Iran Ministry of Commerce. Although proposed model may not offer an exact prediction of future market, but could be used as an applicable tool for analyzing and adjusting the market in Iran Ministry of Commerce .

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Abstract The purpose of this article is to present a system dynamics (SD) model for studying the ‎interconnections among human being weight, eating habit, exercise, body fat, take-in medication, drugs-uses, and the health problems in general. Due to the fact that all of these factors have direct and indirect impacts on the expenses that insurance company have to pay this author is proposing a systems thinking approach for determining the interconnections among the factors and uses the concept of system dynamics to simulate and determine the behavior of the system. To do so, this author has reviewed key point ‎about the system thinking, related theories, and system dynamics. Next, models in ‎the form of causal loops presenting the interconnections between weight factor ‎and health problems are developed and discussed. Thereafter, a flow diagram of ‎model is constructed and the overall expenses are studied. Expense rates are classified as: operational expenses (OE), treatment expenses (TE), Medication expenses (ME), Hospitality expenses (HE), and Drug treatment expenses (DE). This article makes a significant contribution to the health ‎study issues due to the fact that it shows how a factor such as weight can have ‎impacts on hearth attack, blood pressure, and blood sugar, to mention a few, and how relate all these to the overall expenses that an insurance company have to pay at last. ‎Since, to the best of this author's knowledge, this is the first study that relates ‎weight to health problem using systems thinking concepts and system dynamics approach ‎it makes significant contribution to health literature.‎

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Allocation of construction risks between clients and their contractors has a significant impact on the total construction costs. This paper presents a system dynamics (SD)-based approach for quantitative risk allocation. Using the proposed SD based approach, all the factors affecting the risk allocation process are modeled. The contractor’s defensive strategies against the one-sided risk allocation are simulated using governing feedback loops. The full-impact of different risk allocation strategies may efficiently be modeled, simulated and quantified in terms of time and cost by the proposed object-oriented simulation methodology. The project cost is simulated at different percentages of risk allocation and the optimum percentage of risk allocation is determined as a point in which the project cost is minimized. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it has been implemented in a pipe-line project. The optimal risk allocation strategy is determined for the inflation risk as one of the most important identified risks.

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Job Satisfaction (JS) plays important role as a competitive advantage in organizations especially in helth industry. Recruitment and retention of human resources are persistent problems associated with this field. Most of the researchs have focused on the job satisfaction factors and few of researches have noticed about its effects on productivity. However, little researchs have focused on the factors and effects of job satisfaction simultanosly by system dynamics approaches.In this paper, firstly, analyses the literature relating to system dynamics and job satisfaction in services specially at a hospital clinic and reports the related factors of employee job satisfaction and its effects on productivity. The conflicts and similarities of the researches are discussed and argued. Then a novel procedure for job satisfaction evaluation using (Artificial Neural Networks)ANNs and system dynamics is presented. The proposed procedure is implemented for a large hospital in Iran. The most influencial factors on job satisfaction are chosen by using ANN and three differents dynamics scenarios are built based on ANN's result. . The modelling effort has focused on evaluating the job satisfaction level in terms of key factors which obtain from ANN result such as Pay, Work and Co-Workers at all three scenarios. The study concludes with the analysis of the obtained results. The results show that this model is significantly usfule for job satisfaction evaluation Keywords: Job Satisfaction, system dynamics, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), healthcar field.

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Abstract: In order to evaluate the relationship between Organizational Strategies and Organizational results, a comprehensive model is required, which should be able to capture all aspects of business excellence. The EFQM model is suitable tool to observe these factors. The EFQM model consists of two main domains: Enablers and Results. The first domain which includes processes and systems in general, "enable" the organization to have higher performance or "results". On the other hand, the feedback from the results makes the organization to correct the system. Hence, a dynamic model could be appropriate in analyzing the interrelated behavior of the two main domains as well as those within the criteria and sub-criteria. This research is an effort to find the relationship between Strategies and results through system dynamics tool based upon EFQM model. In other words, this research exploits system dynamics in order to measure the effects of Strategies on Organizational results using a dynamic model. The advantage is that by changing one parameter in the Strategies, one can find how it could affect key results especially financial outcomes. Keywords: Organizational Strategies, Organizational results, Business Excellence Model, EFQM, System Dynamics

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Because of electricity subsidies, electricity price in Iran is much lower than its real value, and the growth of electricity demand is much more than its rational rate, which in turn implies ever increasing investment in the electricity section by the Government. Therefore, the recent Government policies are based on elimination of electricity subsidies, followed by commissioning complete electricity market to attract investors in the power industry. In this paper, a model is developed for electricity demand prediction and evaluating Iran's current electricity market and complete market to deal with optimistic and pessimistic electricity demand. Hence, a system dynamics framework is applied to model and generate scenarios because of its physical capability and information flows that allow understanding the of behavior nonlinear dynamics in uncertain conditions. To validate the model, it was compared with the available actual data within 21 years, since (1988-2008). After model validation, two scenarios are evaluated based on the influence of eliminating electricity subsidies on electricity demand in short-term and long-term and then commissioning of the probable complete electricity market is evaluated. For this purpose, first, the electricity demand is estimated for the target years and then changing dynamics in transition of Iran’s electricity market is analyzed.

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Abstract Firms no longer compete as autonomous entities and prefer to joinin a supply chain alliance to take advantage of highly competitive business situation. Supply chain coordination has a greatimpact on Firm’sstrategic partnering and success in competitive business environment. In this paper, we propose a system dynamics simulation model for strategic partner selection in supply chain. Our model addresses a supply chain including suppliers and retailers. It presents an approach to simulateeach supplier’s (retailers) tendency to select downstream (upstream) partner selection and the impact of their policies in the whole supply chain.

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Safety has been established to maintaining and improving the productivity level of aviation industry with derivable benefits in terms of wealth and reputation. Despite, the investment in aviation; safety is generally recognized as an incurred cost, leading to compliance approach. This may be due to dearth of literature on generally agreed proactive safety performance indicator to justify the huge investment. This study therefore developed predictive models that evaluate runway safety investment strategies and predict the overall performance of the aviation system using System Dynamics stock and flow diagram.  An interactive computer programme of the models was written using Java programming language. The set of dynamic equations for predicting number of runway accidents, preventions, monetary savings/losses and safety programme breakeven period were the safety performance measures. Runway safety intervention effectiveness factor and level of budget implementation were system policy parameters used to control the mechanism of the runway safety system. Relevant data were obtained from Federal Aviation Authority, Nigeria to validate the models. Twenty-nine runway safety quantities were identified. The dynamic equations for number of runway accident preventions and monetary savings/losses exhibited exponential growth while number of runway accidents, exhibit exponential decay. The results of the simulation runs showed no significant difference with real life situations; thus the models can serve as useful tools to effectively and efficiently manage the behaviour and performance of runway safety programme.