Publication Date: 2024
Operations Research for Health Care (22116923)40
With the growing demand for healthcare resources, pressure on efficient usage of available bed capacity is increasing. Peaks in bed demand corresponds to overcrowding in upstream units such as emergency department or operating rooms. With a balanced schedule in elective surgeries integrated into the master surgical schedule, peak traffic can be leveled across the week without changing resource capacity. Hence, overcrowding is reduced without turning away any patients or increasing bed capacity. This study formulates the integration of master surgical and elective surgery scheduling problems as an Integer Programming model to minimize the fluctuation in the required ward beds for elective inpatients admitted for surgery to the hospital, by changing the day of surgery. This demonstrates the opportunities for smoothing the expected patient demand for beds by adjusting the operating room schedule. This decision is made at the tactical level. The model has been examined using data on the elective patient demand for beds in the hospital during typical weeks driven from Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada. The integer programming model has been solved using GAMS/CoinCBC MIP Solver. The model enhances bed management by not only smoothing but also reducing the peak demand. The optimal schedule reduces the peak patient demand for bed by about 3–19% for the test samples. The model can be extended to cover the demand for other resources such as ICU beds. © 2023
Publication Date: 2024
International Journal of Healthcare Management (20479700)17(1)pp. 63-75
Nowadays proper management of hospital resources has played an important role in reducing the economic pressure on hospitals. Unprecedented challenges have arisen for healthcare systems including further resource constraints due to the Covid-19 pandemic. So different countries faced the low capacity of hospitals' resources to admit and care for patients during the crisis. Medical staff, beds and personal protective equipment are among the scarce resources in this period. In this study, the patient flow in public hospitals has been modeled using System Dynamics (SD) simulation to manage the available capacity of intensive care units (ICU) and wards during the COVID-19 period. The model has been implemented in Vensim PLE and verified for public hospitals in Amol, Iran. The results have shown that hospitals face bed shortages in the period coinciding with the growing incidence of COVID-19, being forced to cancel or delay the admission of selected patients and nonemergency surgeries. Different scenarios based on possible strategies for managing hospital bed capacities have been also evaluated. The best strategy is the one in which the allocated bed capacities to COVID-19 patients are altered based on infection rates during different stages of the pandemic, resulting the shortage of beds is postponed the most. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Publication Date: 2023
Medical Physics (24734209)50(5)pp. 3148-3158
Background: In recent years, with the development of artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques, it has become possible to predict the three-dimensional distribution dose (3D3) of a new patient based on the treatment plans of similar recent patients. Therefore, some new questions have arisen for the above issue: how to make use of the predicted 3D3 obtained from deep learning, to facilitate treatment planning? How to convert the predicted 3D3 to a clinical deliverable Pareto optimal plan? Little research has been done and limited software has been developed in this regard. Purpose: In the current research, an attempt was made to contribute the knowledge-based planning by presenting a new mathematical model, and to take a novel step towards optimizing the treatment plan derived from both predicted 3D3 as well as dose prescription to generate a semi-automated clinically applicable optimal IMRT treatment plan. Methods: The presented model has benefited from both prescribed dose as well as predicted dose and its objective function includes both quadratic and linear phrases, so it was called the QuadLin model. The model has been run on the data of 30 patients with head and neck cancer randomly selected from the Open-KBP dataset. There are 19 sets of dose prediction data for each patient in this database. Therefore, a total of 570 problems have been solved in the CVX framework with commercial solver Mosek and the results have been evaluated by two plan quality approaches (1) DVH points differences, and (2) satisfied clinical criteria. Results: The results of the current study indicate a strong significant improvement in almost all plan evaluation indicators compared to the reference plan of the dataset, 3D3 predictions, as well as the results of previous research, based on the Wilcoxon signed ranks test with a significance level of 0.01. Accordingly, for all regions of interest (ROIs) (or structures) of all 570 problems total clinical indicators have improved by more than 21%, 15%, and at least13%, on average, compared to the predicted dose, the reference plan, and previous research, respectively, with 341 s as the average of solving time. Conclusions: Evaluation of the research results indicates the significant effect of the QuadLin model on improving the dose delivery to the target volumes while reducing the dose and preserving organs at risk. Based on the literature, the proposed model has generated the best-known treatment plan from the predicted 3D3 so far. © 2023 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
Publication Date: 2022
International Journal of Operational Research (17457653)43(4)pp. 479-497
In this article, the surgical case assignment problem (SCAP) with uncertain duration of surgeries is assessed. This problem is defined as assigning the subsets of patients on the waiting list to the time blocks of operating rooms (ORs) in a given planning horizon. To further increase the OR utility rate and service rate, a novel modified block scheduling strategy is proposed and modelled as a mixed integer programming model. Then a robust optimisation model is proposed to tackle uncertainties in surgery duration. A set of real-based instances from 'Al Zahra Hospital', a teaching hospital in Iran, is applied to verify the proposed deterministic model. The optimal solution is compared with the actual hospital plan indicating the efficiency of this proposed model in practice. A robust model is evaluated through a set of instances. Numerical results indicate that the average percent of overtime reduction is 51.95% by applying the robust model. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Publication Date: 2021
Jordan Journal Of Mechanical And Industrial Engineering (19956665)15(3)pp. 251-263
Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a technique for evaluating homogeneous Decision-Making Units (DMUs) that consume similar inputs to produce similar outputs. An essential principle in this method is to identify inputs and outputs; the identified inputs (outputs) must be independent of each other. However, in the real world, there are situations where there is a correlation between two or more inputs (outputs), and then one of them should be considered in the performance evaluation. This issue can cause problems in practice. The main question, in this case, will be that" Which of these two or more correlated variables should be considered in evaluating DMUs?". In this paper, a method for determining an essential variable using a DEA model is presented. In this way, the basic models of DEA have been integrated with the 0-1 programming to achieve the above objective. The proposed method is then improved by using Centralized Data Envelopment Analysis (CDEA) model, followed by refining the performance evaluation variables. At last, the application of the proposed method has been verified for different examples. Results show that the proposed method selects the appropriate variable from among the correlated variables. Also, improving the method using a centralized approach leads to the selection of a variable that increases the total efficiency. The application and implementation of the proposed method is simple and does not have computational complexity. It also does not need experts’ judgment, so it is a cost-effective way © 2021 Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. All rights reserved
Publication Date: 2021
International Journal of Procurement Management (17538432)14(1)pp. 1-29
This paper aimed to evaluate the performance of Iran's special economic export zones by considering export performance improvement criteria of companies operating in these zones. The panel data envelopment analysis was employed for performance evaluation from 2005 to 2016. The Delphi method and snowball sampling were utilised to obtain evaluation criteria from the participation of 77 experts and directors of special zones in three steps. The research questionnaires were filled out by 212 representatives of companies based in special economic zones to survey qualitative evaluation criteria such as zone brand image and zone corporate marketing knowledge. Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Publication Date: 2018
Decision Science Letters (19295804)7(3)pp. 243-256
The purpose of this study is to develop a fuzzy Analytic Network Process (ANP) model that has the ability to evaluate employee performance in different strategies. A team of experts in the field of strategic human resource management and senior management of an organization engaged in steel production were involved in the study. The data collection tool was a questionnaire that was designed based on the criteria of organization's performance appraisal system. The results showed that in cost leadership strategy, compliance of work hierarchy, quantity of work and the ability to make important decisions constituted the highest coefficients, while in the focus strategy, participate in group work, power of supervision and administration and decision making ability had the highest importance. In differentiation strategy, innovation and creativity, quality and offering constructive suggestions received higher ratings than other criteria. Finally, the developed model was used to evaluate the performance of a sample employee. © 2018 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2018
Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering (21681023)35(2)pp. 91-101
Cellular manufacturing is a practical aspect of grouping technology in where similar parts and dissimilar machines are grouped into cells to exploit the cost-effectiveness of mass production and flexibility of job shop manufacturing. In this research, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach is developed to solve the grouping problem in cellular manufacturing systems. The grouping problem of both machines and parts is formulated as a multi-objective mathematical program; first, minimizing intra-cell and inter-cell movement costs and second, maximizing the importance of allocating the parts to the cells with regards to the location of the machines. The weight of each part for each machine is calculated by Analytical Hierarchy Process. Then, the multi-objective GA has been solved by allocating weights to objectives. The results have also been compared with the results of heuristic Jaccard Coefficient method. © 2018 Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers.
Publication Date: 2018
International Journal of Process Management and Benchmarking (14606739)8(2)pp. 142-155
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of emergency departments. The multi-criteria comparison between the wards of different hospitals is not only useful for the patients but also important for the hospital’s management to improve their performance and for the medical policy makers to plan strategic decisions. In this paper, it is intended to consider the aspects of efficiency beyond the traditional evaluation of check list. The factors which have been chosen are divided into two subsets: first, input factors consisting of no. of active beds, no. of physicians, no. of nurses and medical equipment and second, output factors including no. of discharge, percentage of revival, average waiting time and patient satisfaction. The input oriented and constant returns to scale model of data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique is used to evaluate the efficiency of each emergency department. The model can be used to find out the causes of inefficiency and how to improve the performance. The method has been applied to evaluate and compare 24 EDs of hospitals in Isfahan. DEA model reveals that 37% of them are inefficient. The results may be then used to suggest the improvement strategies based on the input factors. Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Publication Date: 2016
International Business Management (discontinued) (19935250)10(7)pp. 1207-1214
Today, Stock Exchange is one of the most influential institutions in the economy of any country this is to a degree that researchers and experts have considered its status as a measure of the economic health of a given society. In financial markets, several tools are used to create transparency in the market. The purpose of this study is to provide a performance evaluation model and to rank the top companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange to explain the strengths and weaknesses and to determine opportunities and threats they face so that the results of its implementation provide the possibility of analysis and review of policies and programs and improvement of the performance of companies. On the other hand, it helps investors to reconsider their past investments so that they can make decisions about new investments according to the rankings based on performance evaluation. In this study, the list of top companies, 38 companies selected based on investment criteria, listed on Tehran Stock Exchange during 2011, announced by this organization every 3 months and the information needed per share were calculated. Then with the help of a ranking model, a combination of multi-criteria decision-making and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze the structure and determine the weights of ranking criteria and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) Method was used for ranking. Finally, concerning the priorities and aspirations of the investor, a goal programming model was used for selecting optimal investment portfolio. According to the results, the optimal investment portfolio includes shares of National Iranian Copper Industries Co, Mobile Communications Company of Iran (MCI), Chemical Industry and Fanavaran Petrochemical Co each of which have respectively 169, 244, 17 and 52 shares. © Medwell Journals, 2016.
Publication Date: 2016
International Journal of Services and Operations Management (17442370)25(3)pp. 390-412
Mass market strategy does not have a big chance for success in a competitive market. Therefore, by segmenting a heterogeneous market in to some smaller and homogenous markets in which customers have similar characteristics, it is expected that the resources can be more efficiently utilised. The purpose of this study was a mathematical modelling of market segmentation of an Iranian steel-making company using value proposition elements. The model mentioned was used for the analysis of data related to six value proposition elements from 129 major customers of the company. This model was solved using GAMS software and the optimal number of segments was 9. In this study, the results obtained were compared with those achieved by the conventional segmentation methods such as K-means and SOM and two-step clustering. Further, for the validation of the mathematical model used, discriminant analysis of research data was done after segmentation and the success percentage of the ranking rule was found to be 95.3%. Also, the similarity criterion was computed for each potentially new customer. Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Publication Date: 2016
International Journal of Services and Operations Management (17442370)23(3)pp. 277-297
The present study sought to investigate the value proposition concept from the perspective of a steel-producing company and to identify elements provided by the company for its customers. Value proposition concept has been widely used by academicians and industrial practitioners recently. In order to identify the value proposition elements for different groups of customers, many interviews were first held with the managers and the experts of the organisation. The elements identified for the recommended value proposition were 'providing high-quality products', 'on-time delivery', 'provision of technical and commercial information and guides', 'development of products portfolio with emphasis on specific products', and 'competitive pricing and sustainable customers' needs satisfaction'. Then, the data were analysed by multi-attribute decision-making techniques (MADM). Besides, Shanon's entropy method and simple additive weighting (SAW) technique were used for weighing the criteria and AHP technique was used for ranking the choices. The results revealed the ranked elements of the value proposition for every customer group and also, for the overall customers. Finally, some recommendations were proposed for the business model definition and the improvement of competitive conditions. Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Publication Date: 2015
Benchmarking (14635771)22(6)pp. 978-993
Purpose – Different surgical services demand operating rooms (OR) to treat elective patients, each competing for a limited supply of OR time. The purpose of this paper is to obtain empirical measures of performance in the management of OR. The current research compares technical efficiency of 11 specialties in elective operating theatre of Alzahra Hospital in Isfahan, Iran in autumn of 2009. Design/methodology/approach – Data envelopment analysis (DEA) can be used as tools in management control and planning. First, the input oriented and variable returns to scale model of DEA technique has been applied and separate benchmarks for possible reductions in resources used has been derive, and significant savings are possible on this account. Findings – The efficiency scores of inefficient specialties are between 0.62 and 0.96. Neurosurgery and general surgery are the best and the worst units. DEA results determine by how much hospitals can increase elective inpatient surgeries for each specialty. Originality/value – The originality of this study is to obtain empirical measures of performance in the management of OR. DEA has not been applied to measure the efficiency of different department in an organization. The measures are common in different units and have been collected in a similar way. © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Publication Date: 2015
Prensa Medica Argentina (discontinued) (0032745X)101(3)pp. 162-173
The hospital discharge process, from the moment of the discharge order until the patient leaves the hospital, plays a key role in hospital patient management. Improving the discharge process is an important strategy that has links to many hospital activities. The process of discharge is the most important stage affecting the patient’s satisfaction. If this process takes long, it makes patients dissatisfy but it also will not be beneficial for the hospital. In this research, the main objective is analysing the discharge process at Kashani Hospital in Isfahan, Iran. The process may be formulated as a network of queues, and will be analyzed by discrete event simulation. The main factors affecting average waiting time are patients’ financial problems, unnecessary activities and insurance confirmation. Simul8, a visual simulation software, is used to show how the proposed strategies will affect the waiting times in the discharge process. © 2015, Ediciones Medicas del Sur S.R.L.. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2015
Pakistan Journal Of Medical Sciences (1682024X)31(3)pp. 717-720
Medical Record Department (MRD) has a vital role in making short and long term plans to improve health system services. The aim of this study was to describe performance improvement indicators of hospital MRD and information technology (IT). Collection of Data: A search was conducted in various databases, through related keywords in articles, books, and abstracts of conferences from 2001 to 2009. About 58 articles and books were available which were evaluated and finally 15 of them were selected based on their relevance to the study. MRD must be capable of supporting tasks such as patient care and continuity, institute management processes, medical education programs, medical research, communication between different wards of a hospital and administrative and medical staff. The use of IT in MRD can facilitate access to department, expedite communication within and outside department, reduce space with electronic medical records, reduce costs, accelerate activities such as coding by use of coding guide software and facilitate retrieval of records that will ultimately improve the performance of MRD. © 2015, Professional Medical Publications. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2013
Pakistan Journal Of Medical Sciences (1682024X)29(1 SUPPL.)pp. 423-426
The aim of this research was to determine impact of implementing scenarios' simulation on idle and service time at Emergency Room (ER) after one year. Participants in the study included the patients who received services in emergency department (ED). The arrival and service times in different stations were collected for 1092 patients during 17 days. For data analysis, SPSS and simulation technique were used. Results showed service time in the Ear Nose Throat (ENT) and Neurosurgery dramatically reduced as well as other services. Health care managers, in the ER are usually physicians who are not familiar with principals of management.
Publication Date: 2012
Journal Of Medical Systems (01485598)36(3)pp. 1165-1171
Medical Records Department (MRD) is an important unit for evaluating and planning of care services. The goal of this study is evaluating the performance of the Medical Records Departments (MRDs) of the selected hospitals in Isfahan, Iran by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This was an analytic of cross-sectional study that was done in spring 2008 in Isfahan, Iran. The statistical population consisted of MRDs of Alzahra, Kashani and Khorshid Hospitals in Isfahan. Data were collected by forms and through brainstorm technique. To analyze and perform AHP, Expert Choice software was used by researchers. Results were showed archiving unit has received the largest importance weight with respect to information management. However, on customer aspect admission unit has received the largest weight. Ordering weights of Medical Records Departments' Alzahra, Kashani and Khorshid Hospitals in Isfahan were with 0.394, 0.342 and 0.264 respectively. It is useful for managers to allocate and prioritize resources according to AHP technique for ranking at the Medical Records Departments. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010.
Publication Date: 2012
Medical Archives (0350199X)66(1)pp. 53-57
Emergency Department (ED) provides urgency clinical and Para clinical care for patients who injured in accidents and incidents. Simulation is one of the decision supporting techniques that analyze risk factors and strategies in decision-making. The aim of this study was to determine the waiting time in emergency department services at Ayatolahkashani Hospital to propose scenarios for reducing waiting time. This study was an analytical and cross-sectional in which data collected by forms and observations. Population included waiting and service time in all stations related to ED's treatment processes along with diagnostic departments (e.g. Laboratory, Radiology, Ultrasonography, and C-T Scan) over a two-week period for 663 patients. For data analysis, SPSS software and simulation technique were used. Results show that add one intern to the Ear Nose Throat (ENT) service makes the most reduction on the waiting time from 112.19 to 99.24 minutes. In this option the mean of ENT services time will be reduced to 26.54 minutes, neurology services time will be reduced to 6.58 minutes and the mean of orthopedic services time were reduced to 5.98 minutes. Health care managers, in the ED are usually physicians who are not familiar with principals of management. Hence, they need simple tools for logical decision-making. Operation research methods such as simulation should be suitable for them.
Publication Date: 2011
Journal Of Medical Systems (01485598)35(2)pp. 143-150
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the Cardiac Care Units (CCU) of hospitals in Isfahan, Iran. The multi-criteria comparison between the wards of different hospitals is not only useful for the patients but also important for the hospitals management to improve their performance and for the medical policy makers to plan strategic decisions. In this paper, it is intended to consider the aspects of efficiency beyond the traditional evaluation of check list. There are some measures which are used in the existing health audit system and several quantified ratios. Among them the most important ones, based on the patient satisfaction and resource efficiency, have been selected using the weights obtained from their paired comparisons. The factors which have been chosen are divided into two subsets: first, input factors consisting of average number of active beds, medical equipment, personnel (such as doctors, nurses and technicians), and technological capabilities, and second, output factors including bed occupancy percentage, average length of stay, total percentage of survival and performance ratio. The input oriented and variable returns to scale model of Data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique is used to evaluate the efficiency of each CCU ward. The model can be used to find out the causes of inefficiency and how to improve the performance. The method has been applied to evaluate and compare 23 CCUs of hospitals in Isfahan. Although the current health audit system, which uses a check list, has reported 21 of them as first class CCU, DEA model reveals that 11 of them are inefficient. The results may be then used to suggest the improvement strategies based on the output factors. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Publication Date: 2011
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics (09269630)164pp. 196-200
The aim of research was to reduce waiting time at ED. Population includes the patients who received services in ED. The arrival and service times in different stations were collected for 663 patients. For data analysis, SPSS and simulation technique were used. Results shows that add one intern to the Ear Nose Throat (ENT) service makes the most reduction on the waiting time from 112.19 to 99.24 minutes. Health care managers, in the ED are usually physicians who are not familiar with principals of management. © 2011 ITCH 2011 Steering Committee and IOS Press.
Publication Date: 2007
Health Information Management Journal (18333575)36(2)pp. 37-42
Strategies for improving the patient discharge process have a beneficial effect on many hospital activities. The main objective of this research was to analyse the discharge process at Kashani Hospital in Esfahan, Iran in the fall of 2004. This study took the form of a case study in which data were collected by questionnaire, observation and checklist. SPSS and Operations Research (O.R.) methods were used to analyse data. The results showed that the average time for patients to complete the discharge process was 4.93 hours. The hospital personnel involved identified the main factors affecting average waiting time as patients' financial problems and distance between different wards. The longest hospital stay was 5.7 days in the Neurology ward. Findings showed there was a queue in completing medical records at the nursing and medical equipment stations.
Publication Date: 2006
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology, Transaction A: Science (10286276)30(3)pp. 315-323
The problem of finding the minimum cost multi-commodity flow in an undirected and complete network is studied when the link costs are piecewise linear and convex. The arc-path model and overflow model are presented to formulate the problem. The results suggest that the new overflow model outperforms the classical arc-path model for this problem. The classical revised simplex, Frank and Wolf and a heuristic method are compared for the problem. © Shiraz University.
Publication Date: 2002
Journal of Global Optimization (09255001)24(1)pp. 79-88
The Network Design Problem has been studied extensively and in many of these models the cost is assumed to be a concave function of the loads on the links. In this paper we investigate under which conditions this is indeed the case for the communication networks. The result is presented as a theorem, the Concavity Theorem, and a list of conditions that can easily be verified. It is also shown how the theorem can be extended to other applications, like in the area of road transportation.
Publication Date: 2025
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management (17410401)74(1)pp. 139-162
Purpose: This paper proposes an approach for prioritizing Risk Mitigation (RMTG) approaches in perishable food Supply Chains (SCs). Design/methodology/approach: An integrative approach has been proposed, based on the risk typology and Supply Chain RMTG (SCRMTG) approaches literature review, integrating trending Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Quadrant Analysis (QA). Risks are prioritized using Trending FMEA. SCRMTG approaches are prioritized by considering the prioritized risks using QFD and also based on their strategic importance and ease of Benchmarking via QA. The proposed approach has been examined in a dairy-manufacturing company. Findings: Findings indicated supplying the imported machine parts, old machines and delayed new product introduction, respectively, as the most prominent supply, process and demand risks and multiple sourcing, upgraded machinery, hiring skilled staff and training, collaboration with downstream partners as the highly prioritized SCRMTG approaches based on the strategic importance and ease of benchmarking. Research limitations/implications: The results of this study increase the awareness of SC managers and provide the company with a framework of risk management and the insights to manage SCRs in the dairy industry more effectively and efficiently. Originality/value: While the literature review indicates that only a few studies have been focused on prioritizing SCRMTG approaches concerning each type of SCRs, SCRMTG approaches are prioritized based on the SCRs type. Other innovations include QFD development based on the FMEA and SCRMTG approaches, considering the probability of risk occurrence, severity-impact cost and risk recovery duration in trending FMEA instead of the three risk factors in traditional FMEA. © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Publication Date: 2025
Tehnicki Glasnik (18485588)19(3)pp. 489-496
The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical framework that studies the mediating role of supply chain integration (SCI) in the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and innovation performance (IP). This Practical research was done by using the descriptive-correlation method. The statistical population of the study consisted of managers of SMEs in Golpayegan industrial town in Iran. The sampling method was simple random, and 137 companies were selected to determine the sample size by G*Power software. The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed using content and construct validity, and Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess their reliability. The data was analyzed by structural equation modelling in the SMART_PLS software. The research findings showed that TQM has a significant effect on IP and SCI. The impact of SCI on IP is also significant and positive. In addition, the mediating role of SCI in the relationship between TQM and IP was confirmed. © 2025 University North. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2025
Benchmarking (14635771)
Purpose: Identifying and prioritizing the Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) critical success factors (CSFs), based on the supplier integration and process integration factors in the supply chain of the home appliance industry. Design/methodology/approach: The literature has been reviewed and the viewpoints of 20 experts in the relevant industry have been studied. The Pareto principle has also been used to select the most important factors obtained. Finally, to prioritize the most important selected factors of DFSS, a model has been developed with a two-stage Fuzzy House of Quality (FHoQ). To perform this research and consider that Polar Heating and Cooling Manufacturing Company (PHCMC) is one of the pioneers of the home appliance industry in recent decades in Iran, the supply chain of its chimneyless gas heater product has been considered as the case study. Findings: Findings indicated that the priorities of the CSFs of DFSS based on the definite weights obtained from the results of the research model are linking Six Sigma to suppliers, project management, linking Six Sigma to business strategy, linking to organizational learning, considering customer needs and management commitment, respectively. Also, the priorities of supplier integration factors based on the definite weights obtained from the model are suppliers’ partnership, information sharing, top management commitment and support, supplier strategic integration, cost, and supplier evaluation and selection, respectively. Practical implications: According to the findings, it is recommended that the design, research and development unit focus more on the processes and opinions of suppliers and with the special use of data categorization software such as MATLAB, it is also possible to improve the processes and optimize them in further integration of the supply chain. It is also possible to improve the suppliers’ integration in the supply chain with the help of correction analysis and improvement tools in the field of quality management. Originality/value: Supplier integration, process integration and DFSS are three strategic areas in supply chain management that have been addressed in this research, simultaneously. The use of two-stage FHoQ, in obtaining the priority design for the CSFs of DFSS, is one of the significant innovations of this study, which can be used for greater supplier integration and also to improve supply chain integration. © 2025, Emerald Publishing Limited.
