An Integrated Approach of Fuzzy Linguistic Preference Based AHP and Fuzzy COPRAS for Machine Tool Evaluation

Globalization of business and competitiveness in manufacturing has forced companies to improve their manufacturing facilities to respond to market requirements. Machine tool evaluation involves an essential decision using imprecise and vague information, and plays a major role to improve the productivity and flexibility in manufacturing. The aim of this study is to present an integrated approach for decision-making in machine tool selection. This paper is focused on the integration of a consistent fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and a fuzzy COmplex PRoportional ASsessment (COPRAS) for multi-attribute decision-making in selecting the most suitable machine tool. In this method, the fuzzy linguistic reference relation is integrated into AHP to handle the imprecise and vague information, and to simplify the data collection for the pair-wise comparison matrix of the AHP which determines the weights of attributes. The output of the fuzzy AHP is imported into the fuzzy COPRAS method for ranking alternatives through the closeness coefficient. Presentation of the proposed model application is provided by a numerical example based on the collection of data by questionnaire and from the literature. The results highlight the integration of the improved fuzzy AHP and the fuzzy COPRAS as a precise tool and provide effective multi-attribute decision-making for evaluating the machine tool in the uncertain environment.     

An Integrated MCDM Model for Conveyor Equipment Evaluation and Selection in an FMC Based on a Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy ARAS in the Presence of Vagueness

The conveyor system plays a vital role in improving the performance of flexible manufacturing cells (FMCs). The conveyor selection problem involves the evaluation of a set of potential alternatives based on qualitative and quantitative criteria. This paper presents an integrated multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model of a fuzzy AHP (analytic hierarchy process) and fuzzy ARAS (additive ratio assessment) for conveyor evaluation and selection. In this model, linguistic terms represented as triangular fuzzy numbers are used to quantify experts’ uncertain assessments of alternatives with respect to the criteria. The fuzzy set is then integrated into the AHP to determine the weights of the criteria. Finally, a fuzzy ARAS is used to calculate the weights of the alternatives. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, a case study is performed of a practical example, and the results obtained demonstrate practical potential for the implementation of FMCs.     

Comparative life cycle sustainability assessment of urban water reuse at various centralization scales

Purpose

Population growth and urbanization lead to increasing water demand, putting significant pressure on natural water sources. The rising amounts of domestic wastewater (WW) in urban areas may be treated to serve as an alternative water source that may alleviate this pressure. This study examines sustainability of utilizing reclaimed domestic wastewater in urban households for toilet flushing and garden irrigation. It models a city characterized by water scarcity, using a coal-based electricity mix.

Methods

Four approaches were compared: (0) Business-as-usual (BAU) alternative, where the central WW treatment plant effluent is discharged to nature; (1) central WW treatment and urban reuse of the effluent produced; (2) semi-distributed greywater treatment and reuse, at cluster scale; (3) Distributed greywater treatment and reuse, at building scale. Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA), social LCA (S-LCA), and life cycle costing (LCC) were applied to the system model of the above scenarios, with seawater desalination as the source for potable water. System boundaries include water supply, WW collection, and treatment facilities. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methodology, was integrated into the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework as a means for weighting sustainability criteria through judgment elicitation from a panel of 20 experts.

Results and discussion

Environmentally and socially, the two distributed alternatives perform better in most impact categories. Socially, semi-distributed (cluster scale) reuse is somewhat advantageous over the fully distributed alternative (building scale), due to the benefits of community engagement. Economically, the cluster-level scenario is the most preferable, while the building-scale scenario is the least preferable. A hierarchical representation of the problem’s criteria was constructed, according to the principals of AHP. Each criterion was weighted and those of extreme low importance were eliminated, while maintaining the integrity of the experts’ judgments. Weighted and aggregated sustainability scores revealed that cluster level reclamation, under modeled conditions, is the most sustainable option and the BAU scenario is the least sustainable. The other two alternatives, centralized and fully distributed reclamation, obtained similar intermediate scores.

Conclusions

Distributed urban water reuse was found to be more sustainable than current practice. Different alternative solutions are advantageous in different ways, but overall, the reclamation and reuse of greywater at the cluster level seems to be the best option among the three reuse options examined in this assessment. AHP proved an effective method for aggregating the multiple sustainability criteria. The hierarchical view maintains transparency of all local weights while leading to the final weight vector.

     

Development of composite sustainability performance index for steel industry

The steel companies are becoming increasingly aware about the sustainability challenges. In order to become a responsible corporate citizen, the industry has responded to these challenges through adoption of pillars of sustainability. The industry has made the beginning with identification of sustainability indicators. The indicators have been developed specifically for steel industry. Generally, it is quite difficult to evaluate the performance of company on the basis of large number of sustainability indicators. Integration of key sustainability indicators is quite essential for decision-making. Composite indicators are an innovative approach to evaluate sustainable performance. This paper presents a method for development of composite sustainability performance index (CSPI) that addresses the sustainable performance of steel industries along all the three pillars of sustainability—economic, environmental and societal. Organizational governance and technical aspects have also been considered fourth and fifth dimensions of sustainability.The objective of this paper is to introduce sustainability and to present a conceptual decision model, using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assist in evaluating the impact of an organization's sustainability performance. AHP has been used to determine the weights at various levels. Sub-indices have been evaluated and aggregated to form CSPI. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated in a case study for a major steel company in India.     

Sustainability criteria and indicators of bioenergy systems from steering,research and Finnish bioenergy business operators’ perspectives

This paper addresses the interface of steering, research, and business operators’ perspectives to bioenergy sustainability. Although bioenergy business operators are essential for sustainable development of bioenergy systems through implementation of sustainability criteria, their perspective to sustainability is rarely studied. We systematically studied the relevant sustainability criteria and indicators from the three perspectives in different stages of a general bioenergy life cycle and in different sustainability dimensions, and evaluated bioenergy operators’ sustainability principles, criteria and indicators simultaneously with respect to the steering and research data and a business sustainability maturity framework. We collected data from literature and a workshop for Finnish bioenergy experts. The results show a similar division of steering and operators’ sustainability criteria and indicators to life cycle stages and sustainability dimensions with a slight emphasis on business economic sustainability from operators’ perspective. The acceptability principle could provide bioenergy operators a meaningful way of identifying the role of sustainability criteria and indicators from steering and research sources in advancing their business sustainability maturity.     

Multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment framework for energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties. Part 1: weighting method

Purpose

Life cycle sustainability assessment is meaningful for the decision-makers/stakeholders to select the most sustainable option among multiple alternatives; however, there are usually various severe uncertainty problems in sustainability-oriented decision-making, i.e., the vagueness and ambiguity that existed in human judgments and the lack of information. This study aims at developing a novel life cycle multi-criteria sustainability assessment method for helping the decision-makers/stakeholders to determine the sustainability level of the industrial and energy systems. In part 1, an improved interval analytic hierarchy process (AHP) which allows multiple decision-makers/stakeholders to participate in the decision-making was developed to determine the weights of the criteria which were used in life cycle sustainability assessment.

Methods

It is usually difficult for the decision-makers/stakeholders to use the numbers from 1 to 9 and their reciprocals for determining the comparison matrix when using the traditional AHP method for weight calculation, because human judgments usually involve various uncertainties. In order to the overcome this weak point of the traditional AHP, an improved AHP, so-called interval AHP, in which, multiple decision-makers/stakeholders are allowed to participate in the decision-making and allowed to use interval numbers instead of crisp numbers to establish the comparison matrix for determining the weights of the criteria for life cycle sustainability assessment, has been developed.

Results and discussion

The proposed method was used to determine the weights of the four aspects for life cycle sustainability assessment including economic, safety, social, and environmental aspects. Five representative stakeholders were invited to participate in the decision-making. After Monte Carlo simulation, the final weights of the four aspects have been determined with the proposed interval AHP.

Conclusions and perspectives

An interval AHP method was developed for determining the weights of the criteria for life cycle sustainability assessment; the decision-makers are allowed to use interval numbers to establish the comparison matrix for weight calculation. The weighting coefficients determined by Monte Carlo method can accurately reflect the preferences and willingness of multi-actor comparing with the traditional AHP method. This paper merely presents a novel method to calculate the weights of the criteria for life cycle sustainability assessment, but the method for determining the sustainability performance has been presented in part 2.

     

Introducing weights to life cycle sustainability assessment—how do decision-makers weight sustainability dimensions?

Purpose

Decisions based on life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) pose a multi-criteria decision issue, as impacts on the three different sustainability dimensions have to be considered which themselves are often measured through several indicators. To support decision-making at companies, a method to interpret multi-criteria assessment and emerging trade-offs would be beneficial. This research aims at enabling decision-making within LCSA by introducing weights to the sustainability dimensions.

Methods

To derive weights, 54 decision-makers of different functions at a German automotive company were asked via limit conjoint analysis how they ranked the economic, environmental, and social performance of a vehicle component. Results were evaluated for the entire sample and by functional clusters. Additionally, sustainability respondents, i.e., respondents that dealt with sustainability in their daily business, were contrasted with non-sustainability respondents. As a last step, the impact of outliers was determined. From this analysis, practical implications for ensuring company-optimal decision-making in regard to product sustainability were derived.

Results and discussion

The results showed a large spread in weighting without clear clustering. On average, all sustainability dimensions were considered almost equally important: the economic dimension tallied at 33.5%, the environmental at 35.2%, and the social at 31.2%. Results were robust as adjusting for outliers changed weights on average by less than 10%. Results by function showed low consistency within clusters hinting that weighting was more of a personal than a functional issue. Sustainability respondents weighted the social before the environmental and economic dimension while non-sustainability respondents put the economic before the other two dimensions. Provided that the results of this research could be generalized, the retrieved weighting set was seen as a good way to introduce weights into an operationalized LCSA framework as it represented the quantification of the already existing decision process. Therefore, the acceptance of this weighting set within the respective company was expected to be increased.

Conclusions

It could be shown that conjoint analysis enabled decision-making within LCSA by introducing weights to solve a multi-criteria decision issue. Furthermore, implications for practitioners could be derived to ensure company-optimal decision-making related to product sustainability. Future research should look at expanding the sample size and geographical scope as well as investigating the weighting of indicators within sustainability dimensions and the drivers that influence personal decision-making in regard to weighting sustainability dimensions.

     

A PCA-based method for construction of composite sustainability indicators

Purpose

Sustainable manufacturing is practiced globally as a comprehensive strategy for improving the sustainability performance of the manufacturing industry. While sustainability is characterized into such three dimensions as economic, environmental, and social, currently, there is no quantitative method yet to measure the so-called ??sustainability?? in the manufacturing industry. The objective of this research is to develop a comprehensive and effective quantitative method to measure the overall sustainability performance of manufacturing companies.

Methods

In this paper, an integrated methodology is presented for the development of composite sustainability indicators based on principal component analysis (PCA). In developing this integrated approach, both industry and academia surveys are conducted to identify what sustainability indicators are favored by the sustainable manufacturing community. A unique index is then generated to measure the overall sustainability performance of industrial practices. The methodology can be used for benchmarking the overall sustainability performance of various manufacturing companies.

Results

A case study is conducted on a total of 11 global electronic manufacturing companies. The overall sustainability performance of these companies are measured, benchmarked, and ranked. The results showed that PCA is an effective approach for constructing composite sustainability indicators across environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

Conclusions

From this research, it is found that industry and academia have different views on the sustainability measurement, evidenced by different weights put on the same indicator in industry and academia. The case study demonstrated that the methodology presented in this paper is an effective tool for comprehensive measurement of sustainability performance of manufacturing companies. Strengths and weaknesses of each company can be identified. Then, the recommended improvements can be suggested based on the study of each of the individual indicators.     

Multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment framework for energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties. Part 2: improved extension theory

Purpose

The concept of sustainability and sustainable development has been widely incorporated in energy and industrial systems. This paper is the second part of a two-paper series dealing with multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment of alternative energy and industrial systems in life cycle perspective under uncertainties.

Methods

The criteria system including four macroscopic aspects (environmental, safety, social and economic aspects) has been developed for sustainability assessment of energy and industrial systems. An improved extension theory which can address interval decision-making matrix has been developed for determining the sustainability degree of the energy and industrial systems.

Results and discussion

The weights of the criteria for sustainability assessment are the first part of the two-paper series. An illustrative case has been studied by the proposed multi-criteria decision-making method, and the sustainability of six alternative options for the production of a 1-t product was investigated. The sustainability degree of these six alternative options can be determined by the proposed method.

Conclusions and perspectives

A methodology for multi-actor multi-criteria sustainability assessment of energy and industrial options has been developed in this study, the traditional extension theory has been modified to deal with the uncertainty problems and the proposed method can rank the alternative energy and industrial systems with the decision-making matrix in which the data of the alternatives with respect to the evaluation criteria are intervals. In the improved extension theory, sustainability has been dived into five grades: excellent, good, satisfied, barely adequate and fail. According to the method for calculating the weights of the criteria for sustainability assessment proposed in part 1, these weights were used to calculate the integrated dependent degree which is a measure of what degree an alternative belongs to the classical fields. An optimal programming model for maximizing the satisfied degree has been developed to rank the sustainability sequence of the alternative options and determine the sustainability degree of each alternative.

     

Prioritizing forest conservation strategies using a multi-attribute decision model to address concerns with the survival of the endangered dragon tree (Dracaena ombet Kotschy and Peyr.)

The globally endangered Dracaena ombet is one of the ten dragon multipurpose tree species in arid ecosystems. Anthropogenic and natural factors are now impacting the sustainability of the species. This study was conducted to prioritize criteria and alternative strategies for conservation of the species using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model by involving all relevant stakeholders in the Desa'a dry Afromontane forest, northern Ethiopia. Information about the potential alternative strategies and the criteria for their evaluation were first collected from experts, personal experiences and literature reviews. Afterwards, they were validated using stakeholders' focus group discussions. Five candidate strategies with three evaluation criteria were considered for prioritization using the AHP techniques. The overall priority ranking value of the stakeholders showed that the ecological criterion was deemed as the most essential factor for the choice of the alternative strategies, followed by the economic and social criteria. The minimum cut-off strategy, combining exclosures with collection of only 5% of plant parts from the species, soil and water conservation and habitat protection management options, was selected as the best alternative strategy for sustainable D. ombet conservation. The livelihood losses due to the selected strategy should be compensated by the collection of non-timber forest products, poultry farming, home gardens, rearing small ruminants, beekeeping and agroforestry. This approach may be extended to study other dragon tree species and explore strategies for the conservation of other arid ecosystems.     

Minimizing Environmental Risks Using Fuzzy TOPSIS: Location Selection for the ITU Faculty of Management

ABSTRACT

Environmental risk is a measure of potential threats to the environment and combines the probability that events will cause or lead to degradation of the environment and the severity of that degradation. Evaluation of environmental risk factors requires linguistic terms to be used rather than exact numerical assignments. The fuzzy set theory provides a useful tool for converting linguistic terms into numerical evaluations. In this article, we will try to select the best location for the Faculty of Management of the Istanbul Technical University taking care of the predetermined environmental criteria by using fuzzy TOPSIS. The decision matrix is composed of linguistic evaluations for the alternatives with respect to the environmental risk criteria. The Macka Campus area has been selected after the multicriteria evaluation. A sensitivity analysis is also realized to see if the minor changes in criteria weights cause any change in the ranking of alternatives. Unless the importance of the criteria rock or soil structure, remoteness to health facilities, transportation availability, and transportation costs is changed to be from low to extremely low importance, the Macka Campus is still the selected alternative.     

Biodiesel-TBL+: A new hierarchical sustainability assessment framework of PC&I for biodiesel production – Part I

Sustainability assessment of biodiesel production is a topic of increasing importance due to the interest of governments to define sovereignty strategies and diversification of their energy matrix, and to set up the impact of biofuels production. In this context, this work aims to propose a hierarchical structure of sustainability assessment that integrates dimensions of sustainable development with principles, criteria and indicators (PC&I). The method employed to define the hierarchical structure was a comprehensive literature review, based on information search strategy and classification. About 400 documents were reviewed and 103 documents were ultimately selected, including laws, policy documents, certificates, directives and other normative documents and papers published in peer-reviewed journals. The first result of the analysis was the need to strengthen identification of the sustainable development assessment, adding the political and technological dimensions to the three traditional dimensions, social, economic and environmental, studied in this kind of evaluation. The second result was the proposal of a hierarchical framework for the sustainability assessment of biodiesel production, organized in four levels: the first level comprises the five dimensions associated with sustainable development evaluation, the second includes 13 principles, the third contains 40 criteria and the fourth level corresponds to a set of indicators that describes each criterion. Outcomes of this work provide a foundation for further discussion of sustainability assessments for biodiesel production and its potential application in specific contexts.     

Ranking municipal solid waste treatment alternatives based on ecological footprint and multi-criteria analysis

The selection of a municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment alternative is a complex task in which a widespread set of criteria must be taken into account. Additionally to economic or social aspects, the decision process should consider the environmental perspective. With the purpose of quantifying the environmental burdens, a wide variety of environmental and sustainability indicators have been developed in the last years. Furthermore, integrative frameworks have been highlighted as the best option to achieve more comprehensive assessments.In this work, four different options of MSW treatment were ranked from an environmental point of view applying two methods: (1) the ecological footprint (EF) as single composite indicator and (2) multi-criteria analysis (MCA) integrating the EF together with other material flow indicators related to water consumption, emissions to air and water and occupied landfill volume. The MCA methods selected were a combination of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) aided by Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Aid (GAIA). The objective was twofold: on the one side, the identification of the most beneficial waste treatment alternative (including thermal plasma gasification which as yet has not been assessed systematically) from an environmental perspective and, on the other side, the comparison of the results yielded by the two ranking methods proposed.The ranking obtained in both cases was (from best to worst): thermal plasma gasification, biological treatment of organic fraction with energy recovery from refuse derived fuel, incineration with energy recovery and landfilling. Hence, the EF proved to be a good screening indicator although it did not provide a comprehensive measure of environmental impacts associated to the waste treatment options considered. Besides, the combined application of AHP and PROMETHEE/GAIA as MCA methodology was found to be a suitable way, not very complex at user level, to integrate the information provided by a set of environmental criteria and to aid decision making.     

Sustainable transportation systems performance evaluation using fuzzy logic

Sustainability has become an overarching concern for transportation policy and planning around the world. This article presents an approach for urban transport sustainability performance evaluation using fuzzy logic. This article presents a model for transport sustainability performance evaluation. Appropriate transport sustainability indicators were identified based on literature. The model addresses all major dimensions of transport sustainability such as Economic Sustainability, Social Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability and Transportation System Effectiveness. Transport sustainability index has been computed as (5.05, 6.62, 8.12) and weaker transport sustainability attributes were found. Transport sustainability index highlights the question how far toward becoming transport sustainable is an enterprise or region? While, weaker transport sustainability attributes reveals that how can an enterprise or region improve its transport sustainability effectively? Appropriate actions were initiated to improve urban transport sustainability performance. The results indicate that the model is capable of effectively assessing transport sustainability and has practical relevance. An example is also used to illustrate the approach developed. The results obtained using fuzzy approach has been validated with conventional crisp approach. 20 transport sustainability attributes out of 60 are found to be weaker and appropriate actions were derived to improve the weaker attributes.     

Industrial ecology and the boundaries of the manufacturing firm

Decisions on organizational boundaries are critical aspects of manufacturing firms’ business strategies. This article brings together concepts and findings from industrial ecology and business strategy in order to understand how manufacturing firms engage in initiatives to facilitate recycling of process wastes. Based on a distinction between waste recovery and use of the recovered resources, the article introduces a typology of four different strategies: Closed, Outsourcing, Diversification, and Open. Each strategy has a unique set of organizational boundaries and is associated with different motives and benefits for the manufacturing firm. The typology of strategies provides a conceptual contribution to assist industrial managers in strategic decision‐making, and to support further studies on organizational boundaries in industrial ecology research.     

Criteria and indicator approach of global sustainability assessment system for sustainable landscaping using native plants in Qatar

The present study focuses on the importance and need to identify criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable landscaping using native plants in Qatar. The conditions for operationalizing the criteria and indicators approach are being incorporated into sustainable development practices and management planning in Qatar. This paper aims to develop criteria and related indicators for strengthening the global sustainability assessment system (GSAS) in order to provide a holistic approach for sustainable environmental assessment and the enhancement of ecosystem services. A total of 50 potentially native plant species were prioritized and categorized based on the following different parameters: weather conditions tolerated (temperature, humidity, and rainfall), multiple use value (ecological, economical, and medicinal), standard crown size (≤50 cm and ≥50 cm) and water requirement (moist, moderate, and dry). Diverse local stakeholders as well as international experts were consulted to rank the plant species, and concluded that these prioritized native species are fit for sustainable landscaping as opposed to the exotic plant species which are imported from different geo-climatic zones. Environmental, social, economic, human, and policy sustainability aspects were considered, along with 12 criteria and 49 related indicators which were identified by promoting the use of potential native plants for sustainable landscaping in Qatar.     

Selecting the sharpest tools to explore the food-feed-fuel debate: Sustainability assessment of family farmers producing food,feed and fuel in Brazil

Continuing interest in sustainable biofuel production is linked with sustainable farming and begs for insights from farming systems research on sustainability assessment and the role of family farms. The aims of this work were two-fold. First, to present a tools and methods selection framework supporting indicator-based sustainability assessment. Second, to apply the framework to the case of castor beans (Ricinus communis L.), family farmers and the biodiesel industry in the southeast of Brazil. The framework synthesizes existing work on sustainability assessment within the agricultural domain. Transparent selection of tools and methods is supported by sequentially accounting for the context of sustainability, dealing with space, classifying the ‘nature of research’ and the degree of integration of different facets of sustainability. The framework is demonstrated with an exploratory assessment of the potential for castor bean cultivation within the current farm type of extensive pasture and fodder crops for dairy cattle. The study accounted for the range of productivity levels within the current farm type and for different management decisions when including castor beans. Assessment was made against economic development, livelihood stability and soil fertility criteria. Selected tools and methods included farm surveys, alternative farming system design and input–output calculations. The results demonstrate the greatest opportunity for castor bean cultivation by currently low productive farms. There is a trade-off of income derived from milk production that is supported by fodder production, and income from castor beans. Decisions regarding areal extent of castor beans and supplementing animal feed, are shown to be farm-specific, and depend upon the interactions between current farm productivity and prioritisation of sustainability criteria. However, generally it is shown that castor bean cultivation should be linked to animal production so that current risk management and income levels can be supported and improved. Further, to maintain soil fertility, castor bean cultivation with nitrogen inputs is necessary. The cyclic nature of the framework supports the next contextualisation of the sustainability question. For our application, constructive future work in a next cycle could include extending to regional level and accounting for temporal variability.     

Ranking of Business Process Simulation Software Tools with DEX/QQ Hierarchical Decision Model

The omnipresent need for optimisation requires constant improvements of companies’ business processes (BPs). Minimising the risk of inappropriate BP being implemented is usually performed by simulating the newly developed BP under various initial conditions and “what-if” scenarios. An effectual business process simulations software (BPSS) is a prerequisite for accurate analysis of an BP. Characterisation of an BPSS tool is a challenging task due to the complex selection criteria that includes quality of visual aspects, simulation capabilities, statistical facilities, quality reporting etc. Under such circumstances, making an optimal decision is challenging. Therefore, various decision support models are employed aiding the BPSS tool selection. The currently established decision support models are either proprietary or comprise only a limited subset of criteria, which affects their accuracy. Addressing this issue, this paper proposes a new hierarchical decision support model for ranking of BPSS based on their technical characteristics by employing DEX and qualitative to quantitative (QQ) methodology. Consequently, the decision expert feeds the required information in a systematic and user friendly manner. There are three significant contributions of the proposed approach. Firstly, the proposed hierarchical model is easily extendible for adding new criteria in the hierarchical structure. Secondly, a fully operational decision support system (DSS) tool that implements the proposed hierarchical model is presented. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical model is assessed by comparing the resulting rankings of BPSS with respect to currently available results.     

Decentralised manufacturing of cell and gene therapy products: Learning from other healthcare sectors

Decentralised or ‘redistributed’ manufacturing represents an attractive choice for production of some cell and gene therapies (CGTs), in particular personalised therapies. Decentralised manufacturing splits production into various locations or regions and in doing so, imposes organisational changes on the structure of a company. This confers a significant advantage by democratising supply, creating jobs without geographical restriction to the central hub and allowing a more flexible response to external pressures and demands. This comes with challenges that need to be addressed including, a reduction in oversight, decision making and control by central management which can be critical in maintaining quality in healthcare product manufacturing. The unwitting adoption of poor business strategies at an early stage in development has the potential to undermine the market success of otherwise promising products. To maximise the probability of realising the benefits that decentralised manufacturing of CGTs has to offer, it is important to examine alternative operational paradigms to learn from their successes and to avoid their failures. Whilst no other situation is quite the same as CGTs, some illustrative examples of established manufacturing paradigms are described. Each of these shares a unique attribute with CGTs which aids understanding of how decentralised manufacturing might be implemented for CGTs in a similar manner. In this paper we present a collection of paradigms that can be drawn on in formulating a roadmap to success for decentralised production of CGTs.