Vulnerability Assessment for Port Logistics System Based on DEMATEL-ISM-BWM

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article focuses on the vulnerability of port logistics systems and explores methods to assess and address them. It summarizes typical approaches to studying risk and vulnerability, including Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and Best-Worst method (BWM), among others.

In previous studies, experts often combine DEMATEL and ISM models to analyze the correlations between factors and use the AHP/ANP method to identify the key points of the system.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of vulnerability factors affecting port logistics systems and presents a range of assessment methods used in previous studies. By summarizing these approaches, the authors offer valuable insights into the current state of research on port logistics vulnerability.

The paper is strong in its extensive list of vulnerability assessment methods. It also highlights the importance of integrating methods to analyze vulnerability factors and their interactions.

It could benefit from a more in-depth discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, as well as their applicability to specific scenarios. It needs more concrete examples of how these methods apply in real-world port logistics systems to illustrate their practical relevance. More importantly, it needs to define vulnerability early in the document. It is comprehensive in its approach, but it needs to make that clear from the start.

It’s a useful resource for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding and addressing the vulnerability of port logistics systems. It still needs to define ‘vulnerability’ early in the document. The current approach to this key term is vague and confusing.

Major comments: You need to define vulnerability. It should be clear from the start whether you mean economic vulnerability, physical vulnerability, cyber vulnerability, or some combination of these. That remains foggy throughout the document. Make that clear in the first or second paragraph. Take some space to define exactly what you mean. Then keep it clear throughout. There's some good material here, but this lack of definition leaves the reader uncomfortable.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Needs some editing for clarity. The math is strong, but the language is needlessly complex. It's unclear.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a timely study, and this paper identifies and assesses the
vulnerability of port logistics systems, which is of some theoretical
and practical significance. However, I would like to point out some
minor problems:

1. it is suggested to remove the cross-paragraph conjunctions in the
main text.

2. It is recommended to cite the mainstream vulnerability approach
literature mentioned in page 2 one by one.

3. the literature mentioned in Table 1 does not seem to be cited in the
references. Also, Table 1 seems to be a summary of the inventors of the
methods. It is recommended to summarize the methods used in different
port logistics system vulnerability papers.

4. it is recommended to have a dialog with previous literature in the
discussion section, e.g. to confirm how the conclusions or results of
some studies differ from previous studies.

5. the language in the paper is generally clear and easy to understand.
However, there are places where the copy editor could improve the
English language. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language in the paper is usually clear and easy to understand. But there are places where copy editing can improve English.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The vulnerability of the port logistics system itself has rarely been studied in depth 26 by scholars. Most of the existing research on the stability of logistics systems focuses on 27 robustness, resilience, vulnerability, etc., but it is crucial to unearth the vulnerabilities that 28 exist in the system, because all system breakdowns start from the most vulnerable places, 29 which in turn undermine the overall stability of the system. 

In this quote from the paper, the authors state that studies of vulnerability are rare, but then list vulnerability as one theme in existing research. This paper appears to aim at identifying vulnerabilities specifically in logistics at the ports. It needs clarifying: specifically, which aspects of port operations does the study examine? Perhaps every port activity is logistics. Define the domain of the study at the outset. At this point, it's vague. It wanders. 

This passage was recently added:  This paper's vul-51 nerability research on the port logistics system focuses more on the vulnerability risks in 52 its operations, which can also be seen as a combination of studying economic vulnerability 53 and physical vulnerability: revealing the port logistics by studying the interrelationships 54 between vulnerability factors The physical vulnerability of the system reveals key bottle-55 necks that affect the improvement of economic benefits of the entire port logistics system 56 by identifying key vulnerability factors. 57 The mainstream methods for studying vulnerability include hierarchical analysis 58 (AHP) [44], data envelopment analysis (DEA) [2, 45], analytic network process (ANP) [43], 59 TOPSIS [40] model, ISM [42, 43, 44], DEMATEL [42, 43, 44], BWM [46] methods and so on. 60 However, previous studies were unable to analyze in depth the relationship between var-61 ious factors affecting vulnerability, and the process of determining the "vulnerability 62 point" was too complicated. In this paper, a combination of BWM, ISM and DEMATEL ...

Again, the focus becomes vague because of the language. The sentence structures impede the meaning. State it: Most studies of port vulnerability have used these methods: (list). We use ___ because it lets us do ___, which has not been done. 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English needs clarifying. That's the biggest weakness in this paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Disruptions in individual supply chains may have a negative impact on the entire network of dependencies in the system and, consequently, on its functioning. Therefore, it is important to identify critical elements of the system and their vulnerability. Therefore, I consider this topic discussed in the article to be very important.

The structure of the article is correct. In the introduction, the authors identified the research gap and defined the research goal. The literature review was properly conducted, focusing first on the current achievements in the field of port logistics systems and defining the concept of vulnerability, and then an attempt to define the concept of " Vulnerability Assessment for Port Logistics System".

When describing the port logistics system, you introduced the ‘Port logistics system vulnerability assessment index system’ that covers 18 factors and developed an original method that combined three previously used approaches. DEMATEL, ISM, and BMW. By describing your approach formally and schematically, you provided an interesting tool enabling in-depth vulnerability analysis. I consider this approach valuable and original.

The weakness of the approach may be to ask only five experts for a vulnerability assessment. However, the objective of your text was to show the usefulness and applicability of the method. Therefore, this can be considered acceptable.

In my opinion, the article describes an interesting method that can be effectively used to assess factors that affect the vulnerability of the port logistics system. However, the main drawback of the text is the lack of a practical part, i.e. presenting the application of the method to selected logistic port systems. It would also be interesting to compare the results obtained using the developed approach with the results obtained using the methods used so far, which could be presented in the discussion part of the article.

Kind regards

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. This article does have shortcomings in the refining of conclusions and suggestions. Improvements have been made in the resubmitted version. 
The improvements are specifically explained in the reply below. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments to the Author

In order to identify and assess the vulnerability of the port logistics system itself by using the Deterministic Experimentation and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methods to study the correlation between the vulnerability factors of the port logistics system, and the best-worst method (BWM) to identify the key vulnerability points of the system. I have few inquiries for the paper, please refer to the following content.

 

 

Major comments:

1. The authors need to address the detail about how to establish index system not just by delphi method with several experts. (Table 2). For example, the background of experts and number of experts.

 

2. Applying this kind of qualitative research, usually the interview plan and questions need to attach with paper. And experts need to be selected from different field, such as practical, academia, and government sector. In this case, the bais can be reduced.  
3. Table 4 better to put full name of indicators. 

 

 

Minor comments:

1.        Some citing styles are wrong in the manuscript, please check it again.

2.       The authors have asked for a professional English proofreader to edit the manuscript according to the journal format before resubmitting this paper. Please make sure that a competent editor checks the English. Use of the first person (“I”, “we”,etc.) and third-person ("he", "she" etc) must be avoided. And the whole paper is not writing in academic format. There are also some grammar errors need to be revised.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall is fine. some citation need to revise

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. This article does have shortcomings in the refining of conclusions and suggestions. Improvements have been made in the resubmitted version. 
The improvements are specifically explained in the reply below. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors In this paper, the Deterministic Experimentation and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methods  were used to investigate  the correlation between the vulnerability factors of the port logistics system, and the best-worst method (BWM) was used to identify the key vulnerability points of the  port logistics system. It has some significance. However, I have the following concerns: 1) In Literature Review, some  papers related to port  logistics system assessment  are ignored. For example:  --Wang C., Dou X., Haralambides H., Port centrality and the Composite Connectivity Index: Introducing a new concept in assessing the attractiveness of hub ports, Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2022, 24, 

pages67–91.

--Thi Nhu-Mai Nong, Performance efficiency assessment of Vietnamese ports: An application of Delphi with Kamet principles and DEA model, The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics, 2023,39,1-12. 

2) Currently, there are some other assessment models for Port Logistics System Vulnerability. Why the models proposed in this paper are used? 

3)  There are not enough analysis from the results in this paper. Merely all the results are obtained from the calculation of the models. But authors should provide managerial insights and policy implications to the port and government agencies according to the background of the paper.

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. This article does have shortcomings in the refining of conclusions and suggestions. Improvements have been made in the resubmitted version. 
The improvements are specifically explained in the reply below. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf