MCDM Model for Evaluating and Selecting the Optimal Facility Layout Design: A Case Study on Railcar Manufacturing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please add contribution with bullet mark in introduction

Please add lit. review table and add your research in end of table and show gap research

Please complete lit. review and table 1 (minimum 15 papers) and see papers that we suggested in below 

Please add notation list and classify to sets (indices) , parameters, decision variables 

Please assign value for parameters based on notation list

Your presentation is needed to improve (Please see and cite [1-11]).

Please try to arrange article base on

1-Introduction

    Introduction

    Introduction with bullet mark

2-Literature review (survey on related work)

  Review and classify lit. review

  Research Gap

     Table of review

     Step of your model (chart of step of manuscript)

3-Problem statement

   Problem statement

   Picture of problem statement (3d icon)

   Assumptions

   Notation List (sets (indices) , parameters, decision variables,)

   mathematical model

   Solution approach

4-Results

    Description

    Assign value for parameters based on notation list

    Computational Results

    Comparing model

    Sensitivity analysis 1

    Sensitivity analysis 2

    Discussion

5-Managerial insights and practical implications

6-Conclusions and outlook

    Conclusions

    Limitation

    Future research

Please add picture of your model with 3d icon in section 3.

Please type every formulation in a table without border, column one for formulation, column two for sets and indices and column three for number and use Mathtype add-ins for formulation in Word.

Please add Managerial insights and practical implications.

Please add results with bullet mark in conclusion (Please see and cite [1-9]).

Please suggest uncertainty form like fuzzy, robust optimization, data-driven and stochastic.

Please polish English language

Please see lotfi. et al what I mean, (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hk17bBkAAAAJ&hl=en)

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please read the attachment. Thank you. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

1- No need to provide abbreviations for terms that have occurred once in the abstract section. For instance, Discrete Event Simulation (DES).

2- The main contribution and findings of the research should be better highlighted in the abstract. The current version is more method-centric than results-oriented.

3- Abbreviations in the manuscript should be first introduced, no matter if they have been introduced in the abstract or not. For instance, MCDM in the introduction section.

4- The introduction section should be thoroughly rewritten. Please try to focus on the identified research gap, the main research objective, and accordingly, your contribution to the literature.

5- In the literature review section, there is still room for improvement. I recommend the authors provide a more solid research background including more research that has applied various MCDM methods, such as the best-worst method, FAHP, etc. for instance, you might address the following papers: “Recovery agenda for sustainable development post COVID-19 at the country level: developing a fuzzy action priority surface”, and “prioritizing risk-level factors in comprehensive automobile insurance management: a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model”. In this regard, you need to explain that such methods have been used in various fields of research and their capabilities. Providing a table to summarize the most important research is highly acknowledged.

6- Moreover, please try to harmonize the paragraphs in the literature review section. Some are long, while there are some very short ones. Besides, no need to use bullets and numbering items. Please provide a more organic way of presentation in this section.

7- I could not get all information correctly in Figure 6. Please improve the quality.

8- In section 4.4, why you have used a discrete event simulation model? How this part is linked with the previous parts? More explanation and clarification are required.

9- What about potential paths to improve your research in the future? Please elaborate on some directions in this regard.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor and Authors:

 Thank you for providing the point-to-point response.

The authors have carefully and patiently corrected and answered the comments and questions. The manuscript looks perfect now, and the reviewer strongly suggests it be accepted for publication in this journal.

Please feel free to contact me if you have further requests or concerns.

Thank you for reading.

 Sincerely yours,

The Reviewer.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for revising the manuscript.