Affiliations: [a] Department of Food Science and Technology, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
| [b] Department of Industrial Technologies, Urmia University of Technology, Urmia, Iran
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author. Seyed-Ahmad Shahidi, Associate Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran. E-mails: sashahidy@yahoo.com, sa.shahidi@iau.ac.ir.
Abstract: Proper and systematic management of food industry failures can improve the quality of products and save a lot on the costs of organizations and people’s health. One of the conventional methods for risk assessment is the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) which is often performed in a phase or stage. Compared to the combined methods, this method is less accurate due to similar priorities of failure in the evaluation and the lack of consideration of the interaction between risks. The current research has applied an integrated approach based on two techniques, FMEA and Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM), in a multi-stage manner to increase assessment accuracy and ranking of failures. By considering the risks of an industry in an uncertain environment and the causal relationships between failures, this approach can evaluate the industry’s risks better than conventional methods. In the research method, the initial prioritization of failures by the FMEA method is used as the input of the multi-stage FCM. The cause-and-effect relationship between the failures is determined by experts and the functional records of the processes, and the FCM is prepared. Since no research evaluates the risks of the malting industry step by step and considers the causal relationships between the risks, the present study has improved risk evaluation in the malting industry by using a multi-stage FCM. The ranking results with the proposed hybrid approach and its comparison with the conventional methods showed that the rating became more accurate, and the multiple priorities were improved. Managers of the malt beverage industry can make effective investment decisions to reduce or better control the risks of this industry by using the results of applying the proposed approach.
Keywords: Fuzzy cognitive map, beverage industry failures, risk evaluation, FMEA
