The economic lot scheduling problem (ELSP) is a challenge between sequencing and lot sizing. In this problem, several products must be produced on a single machine in a cyclical production pattern and the primary goal is to minimize the total setup and holding expenditures. Since time affects the value of money, it is necessary to take into account the time value of money when gradual payment is the case. In this paper, a new ELSP model with the consideration of the time value of money is considered. The proposed model of this paper is formulated as a nonlinear mixed integer model and a hybrid GA is presented to solve the resulted model for large-scale problems. The proposed method is solved for some benchmark problems for large-scale problems.

One of the most important issues on quality of building structure is its resistance against
earthquake. Earthquake, as one of natural disasters, has been one of the main reasons of fatal
incidents in developing countries. Any attempt to increase the quality of building structure
could reduce any possible damages an earthquake could cause on society. This paper presents a
system dynamic model to study the importance and behavior of the factors which affect the
construction quality of buildings & apos; structures. The proposed model of this paper is analyzed for a
case study and the results are discussed. The paper also uses DEMATEL technique to compare
the results of the proposed method. The paper concludes that among the whole factors which
affect the construction quality of buildings & apos; structures, the "performance of related
organizations and institutions" is of the most important ones.

One of the primary issues on marketing planning is to know the customer & apos; s behavioral trends. A
customer & apos; s purchasing interest may fluctuate for different reasons and it is important to find the
declining or increasing trends whenever they happen. It is important to study these fluctuations
to improve customer relationships. There are different methods to increase the customer & apos; s
willingness such as planning good promotions, an increase on advertisement, etc. This paper
proposes a new methodology to measure customer & apos; s behavioral trends called customer
electrocardiogram. The proposed model of this paper uses K-means clustering method with
RFM analysis to study customer & apos; s fluctuations over different time frames. We also apply the
proposed electrocardiogram methodology for a real-world case study of food industry and the
results are discussed in details

This paper addresses a bi-criteria scheduling problem with deteriorating jobs on a single machine. We develop a model for a single machine bi-criteria scheduling problem (SMBSP) with the aim of minimizing total tardiness and work in process (WIP) costs. WIP cost increases as a job passes through a series of stages in the production process. Due to the uncertainty involved in real-world scheduling problems, it is sometimes unrealistic or even impossible to acquire exact input data. Hence, we consider the SMBSP under the hypothesis of fuzzy L-R processing time's knowledge and fuzzy L-R due date. The effectiveness of the proposed model and the denoted methodology is demonstrated through a test problem.

In today’s turbulent and competitive world, strategic planning plays an important role for the
success of firms. Despite the fact that there are literally numerous models proposed for different
companies in various states and structures, the possibility of using strategic planning for
startups has never been seriously considered. In this paper, we present a survey by asking
experts to find out whether strategic planning is suitable for startups. We also propose a model
for strategic planning in startups based on the strategic planning models for small businesses
and entrepreneurship concepts. The model is similar to other models and what differentiates
this models form other approaches is the methodology used for internal and external analysis
and the parameters taken into consideration. The proposed model is examined on an Iranian
food packaging industry for validation. The preliminary results indicate that the success of
startups depends on two sets of parameters: “entrepreneurial opportunities” and “competitive
advantages and entrepreneurial characteristics”.

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the most popular approaches in the area of multiple attribute decision making (MADM). However, it is not practical any more if input information are fuzzy. In this paper, we propose a new method for fuzzy AHP which is especially useful to make decisions for multiple attribute problems. The method is developed by applying preference ratio concept which makes it practical since it assigns crisp weights and crisp scores to different alternatives. Two algorithms are proposed in this paper: The first one defines crisp and normalized weight by pairwise comparison with fuzzy data while the second one calculates fuzzy consistency ratio. The proposed method is applied to prioritize different short courses in a management school.

Personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies, which specifies similarities, and
differences of people & apos; psychological behavior. Personality is normally a permanent behavior
through time and may not be comprehended easily or recognized as immediate or direct
situations due to some environmental and social stresses. In this paper, we study the
relationship between employees & apos; personality and ability types. The paper identifies that there
are some relationships between employees & apos; personality type and their ability. There is also a
relationship between introvert, extrovert, sensitive, emotive, thoughtful, considerate and
judging personality type and employees & apos; ability.

The new millennium must be called the century to compete for survival. The increase
interaction among international organizations has changed the world into a global village and
firms have no choice but to develop a variety of instruments and equipments to compete with
each other. Value engineering (VE) is one of the new techniques of management science
emerged in using the power of organizational creativity and entrepreneurship programs. VE
modifies the organizational activities, removes the non value-added activities and increases the
current values of organizations. VE has been successfully implemented in many areas of
management such as quality, productivity, project management, etc. The success of a VE
program depends on many organizational factors such as the availability of resources, the
strategy and the organization structure, the senior management support, the organizational
culture and the communication and information systems. In this study, we identify and
prioritize organization factors affecting the implementation of VE using ELECTRE III method.

This paper presents an empirical study on measuring relative efficiencies of test drive
educational organizations using data envelopment analysis. The study uses a Delphi method to
determine the most important input/output factors and then gathers the actual data for all units
located in an Iranian province called Zanjan. The results of the implementation of the DEA
method are compared for different periods of the recent year and they are analyzed. We perform
the DEA implementation for two separate regions, one for the units located inside the city and
the other for the units located in the rural area. The output results of both methods are compared
and the results are discussed in details.

Measuring the performance of a supply chain is normally of a function of various parameters. Such a problem often involves in a multiple criteria decision making (MCMD) problem where different criteria need to be defined and calculated, properly. During the past two decades, Analytical hierarchy procedure (AHP) and DEMATEL have been some of the most popular MCDM approaches for prioritizing various attributes. The study of this paper uses a new methodology which is a combination of AHP and DEMATEL to rank various parameters affecting the performance of the supply chain. The DEMATEL is used for understanding the relationship between comparison metrics and AHP is used for the integration to provide a value for the overall performance