A Decision Support Model for Prioritization of Regulated Safety Inspections Using Integrated Delphi, AHP and Double-Hierarchical TOPSIS Approach

Abstract

Planning regulated occupational safety and health (OSH) inspections is dependent on the prioritization scheme followed by inspection agencies. It is probable that the methods used by OSH inspectorates for decision making on inspection priorities is not efficient enough to cover all the hazardous firms which is evidenced by less than expected reduction in injury rates in many countries. The objective of the current research is to present a prioritization model based on four criteria comprising thirteen subcriteria using an integrated Delphi, AHP and Double-Hierarchical TOPSIS (DH-TOPSIS) approach. The decision main and subcriteria as well as their pairwise comparisons were decided by a group of experts through a Delphi methodology. In addition, the weights of the main and subcriteria were determined using AHP method. Unlike the commonly applied TOPSIS method which uses subcriteria global weights in a single calculation process, the DH-TOPSIS method uses the local weights of the subcriteria to calculate the priority index of the alternatives (firms) with respect to the main criteria in a first TOPSIS calculation cycle. The resulting priority index is used as the evaluation scores of the firms in a second TOPSIS calculation cycle to prioritize firms for subsequent inspections. The DH-TOPSIS performed better than the global weight, single TOPSIS (GWS-TOPSIS) method with respect to the probability that the best alternative has the shortest distance to the ideal solution. Furthermore, the proposed model has a stable prioritization performance without rank reversal. As such, it is dynamic in handling large number of alternatives making it appropriate for prioritization of firms for OSH inspections. This approach can be further integrated with an appropriate scheduling methodology to improve the effectiveness of OSH inspections. INDEX TERMS AHP-TOPSIS, Delphi, double hierarchical TOPSIS, multicriteria decision making, regulated OSH inspections, safety inspections prioritization.

A Novel Macro and Micro Scheduling Model for Regulated Safety Inspections Based on Probability Integral Transform and Modified Bin Packing Algorithm

“…As a result, the firms and the number of inspectors required per week change. To explain this, it should be recalled that the OSH inspectorate is supposed to prioritize firms for inspection based on some safety performance criteria using a prioritization model such as the one proposed by Zyoon [15]. Using firm priority index produced from such a prioritization model, the PIT macro scheduling approach is used to distribute firms uniformly throughout a timeframe (T) so that every year a number of firms are scheduled for inspection.…”

“…where αi has a value in the interval (0,1) with 0 and 1 representing the least and the highest possible priorities, respectively. The priority index (αi) is calculated using a method such as the one proposed by Zytoon [15]. However, due to the disadvantage of the linear ti-αi relationship, PIT is a much better alternative that can be used for transforming (1) into a relationship between ti and the CDF of αi.…”

“…Firms should be scheduled based on a priority index that is assigned to each of them. Example of such priority index is presented by Zytoon [15] who proposed a prioritization model for OSH programmed inspections based on multicriteria decision making. In addition to firm scheduling, the number of inspectors needed to carry on the inspections has to be determined.…”

Evaluation of Agricultural Land Suitability Based on RS, AHP, and MEA: A Case Study in Jilin Province, China

“…Consequently, MEA should be a good choice for land suitability assessment; however, different evaluation factors may have different effects on the comprehensive evaluation value [34], so the weights of factors are particularly important for evaluation. AHP models have been applied to determine the weights of factors in several studies and have produced good results in areas such as ecological sensitivity evaluation [35], energy site selection evaluation [36], and safety evaluation [37]. Thus, AHP models could be used in determining the weights of factors in the process of land suitability evaluation.…”

An Automatic Scenario Control in Serious Game to Visualize Tourism Destinations Recommendation

“…One of the methods in DSS is Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). Among several techniques in MCDM, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarly to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is one of the techniques with simple computation [16]. Topsis is a technique that chooses alternatives based on the closest distance vector from the positive ideal solution and the furthest from the negative ideal solution [17].…”