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The Biomedical Engineering Maintenance Services (BEMS) is a comprehensive maintenance program that ensures the safety and reliability of medical devices. Significant and crucial devices are identified and prioritized for best practice prior to the equipment life cycle to mitigate functional problems, alarmed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) underlying the modernization agenda. A model of multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) to prioritize medical devices according to their criticality is presented in this paper, with the utilization of quality function deployment (QFD) and fuzzy logic in the development of the model through a quantitative survey of experts from all regions in Malaysia. As a result, a customized version of the Asset Criticality Assessment (ACA) is developed and is recommended for use in more than 144 Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals. Subsequently, real data of four selected devices are pulled from the Asset and Services Information System (ASIS) to demonstrate a relevant and comparable end‐result using the QFD and fuzzy logic. In essence, the key contribution of the customized ACA model is that it assesses a promising evaluation with a broader range on both the performance of medical devices and the appropriate asset replacement choices. This leads to an effective maintenance strategy for each device and the modernization of reliability computation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a hierarchical model to rank the challenges faced by the private Malaysian higher education institutions (HEIs) in the provision of quality education and subsequently their corresponding critical success factors (CSFs) to address those challenges. Design/methodology/approach: A sequential mix method was adopted in this study. Semi-structured interviews with 29 participants were initially conducted to identify the challenges and CSFs. This was followed by a questionnaire survey involving 158 respondents to prioritise the identified findings. Thematic analysis was conducted in the qualitative stage, uncovering the challenges and their corresponding CSFs. Data for both stages were accumulated from internal and external stakeholders of Malaysian private HEIs. Finally, the four stages of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were applied to rank the challenges and CSFs. Findings: The qualitative stage identified eight challenges, i.e. "academics", "facilities", "students", "programmes and curriculum", "competition", "accreditation", "finance" and "research" together with their corresponding CSFs. The AHP enables the ranking of these challenges. "Finance" has been found to be the most crucial challenge and "high competency in managing the institution's finance" as the most important CSF to address this challenge. Research limitations/implications: As the study restricted its focus on Malaysian private HEIs, the results may not be generalised for public HEIs and foreign private HEIs operating in Malaysia. Originality/value: The hierarchical model developed in this study is deemed important for implementation to resolve the prioritised challenges. It spells out the specific areas in which the resources of Malaysian private HEIs need to be prudently disbursed and properly managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for prioritizing the effectiveness of antismoking strategies in Malaysia. The framework structuring the tobacco problem into hierarchy was designed using prioritization approach namely Enhanced Analytic Hierarchy Process (EAHP). The framework highlighted the use of EAHP to prioritize the effectiveness of anti-smoking strategies by ensuring the consistency of the overall judgement is less than 0.1. There are five anti-smoking strategies that have been implemented in Malaysia namely packaging and labelling, pricing and taxation, advertising, smoke-free legislation and education and support. The implementation of an effective anti-smoking strategies should be considered towards the endgame of tobacco by the year 2045 as outlined by the government. The findings in turn can provide insights and guidelines for researchers as well as policy makers to assess the effectiveness of anti-smoking strategies towards a better policy planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: By the year 2020, Malaysia aspires to become a fully developed nation. In order to realize this vision, formally termed ‘Vision 2020’, Malaysia must address nine strategic challenges identified by the government of former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad. These challenges are: (1) Establishing a united Malaysian nation, (2) Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian society, (3) Developing a mature democratic society, (4) Forming a community that has high morale, ethics, and religious strength, (5) Establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society, (6) Establishing a scientific and progressive society, (7) Establishing a fully caring society, (8) Ensuring an economically just society, and (9) Establishing a prosperous society. The present paper seeks to identify and rank the critical success factors of these nine challenges by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process. A number of ‘front-line’ critical success factors are discussed at length. The paper also analyzes the impact of respondents’ demography on the outcomes. The findings are expected to provide valuable guidelines to the Malaysian government in course of developing effective action plans to achieve Vision 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy consumption for developing countries is sharply increasing due to the higher economic growth due to industrialisation along with population growth and urbanisation. The increasing demand of energy leads to global energy crisis. Selecting the best energy technology and conservation requires both quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria. The fuzzy set-based approach is one of the well-known theories to handle fuzziness, uncertainty in decision-making and vagueness of information. This paper proposes a new method of intuitionistic fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (IF-AHP) to deal with the uncertainty in decision-making. The new IF-AHP is applied to establish a preference in the sustainable energy planning decision-making problem. Three decision-makers attached with Malaysian government agencies were interviewed to provide linguistic judgement prior to analysing with the new IF-AHP. Nuclear energy has been decided as the best alternative in energy planning which provides the highest weight among all the seven alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to determine the suitable places for a radioactive waste repository in Peninsular Malaysia to implement a permanent disposal facility for disposal sealed radioactive sources (DSRS). The sole Malaysia interim waste storage that stores a large proportion of DSRS was expected to be occupied by 2025 fully. Currently, the nation's licensing board promoted the borehole disposal facility to resolve the full capacity dilemma. The potential sites were determined by the geographical information system (GIS) based Weight Linear Combination (WLC) analysis, integrating the improved Analysis Hierarchical Process (improved AHP) and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approaches. The sensitivity analysis was applied to identify the main contributing factors for corresponding Peninsular Malaysia selection. Ten parametric criteria and three exclusion criteria are applied to assess the potential areas and screen out the unfavorable regions, respectively. Results indicated the final composite map presents 435 areas of very high suitability class with 17.5% coverage from the total suitability class. The top 5 largest candidates with high potentiality are Jerantut & Ulu Lepar, Bandar Tun Razak, Pertang & Simpang, Pertang, Tanjung Ipoh, and Labis, where come from three provinces: Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Johor. By TOPSIS model, the ranks for these five candidates are Jerantut & Ulu Lepar, Bandar Tun Razak, Tanjung Ipoh, Labis and Simpang Pertang. The model revealed that the suitability ranks is proportional to its area sizes in the approximate values of criteria. The three main contributing factors in Peninsular Malaysia are hydrogeology, seismicity and lithology, which are strongly recommended to involve in other corresponding site selection project. • Top five candidates for radioactive waste disposal site in Malaysia are Jerantut & Ulu Lepar, Bandar Tun Razak, Tanjung Ipoh, Labis and Simpang Pertang. • Three main contributing factors for site selection in Malaysia are hydrogeology, seismicity and lithology. • The suitability index rank is proportional to the area sizes in the consideration of area factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's renewable energy policies do not cover production from waste, including the generation of biogas from palm oil mill effluent. This paper combines life cycle cost-benefit analysis (LCCBA) and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to provide new insights into costs and benefits of technologies over the life cycles, and on the basis of this information, asks experts to rank different options to enhance policy. The results show that the continuous stirred tank reactor has a higher LCC of 0.63 Million USD/year, compared to a LCC value of 0.55 Million USD/year for the covered lagoon bio-digester. In terms of cost-benefit, the continuous stirred tank reactor has a higher net present value of 0.46 Million USD/year, higher return on investment of 10.11% and a shorter payback period of 9.9 years compared to the covered lagoon bio-digester system, which has a net present value of 0.22 Million USD/year, return on investment of 7.79% and a payback period of 12.8 years. The continuous stirred tank reactor system therefore emerges as more economically feasible compared to the covered lagoon bio-digester system. On providing this information to experts using AHP, the three top ranked policy options emerged as: i) providing detailed environmental guidelines, ii) standardising technical guidelines for biogas installation and iii) covering the open pond wall using lining. Economic insights and policy opportunities based on this research can be used to inform policy decision making in multiple contexts where biogas plant projects are under consideration, in both Malaysia and globally. • Life cycle cost-benefit analysis (LCCBA) on palm oil mill effluent treatment. • Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) ranks policy options. • Combining LCCBA and AHP offers insights linking economic analysis & policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Currently, around 90% of Malaysia's electricity generation depends on fossil fuels. This reliance, in a long run, is not a secure option. However, renewable energy sources can contribute to a sustainable electricity generation system; but diversifying fuel supply chain is a complex process. Therefore, the aim of this paper is two folds. Firstly, various renewable resources potential are reviewed, and secondly an assessment model is developed for prioritizing renewable options. Four major resources, hydropower, solar, wind, biomass (including biogas and municipal solid waste) are considered. Their electricity generation potential, along with any likely shortcoming is also discussed. Moreover, using a multi-perspective approach based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), an assessment model is developed. AHP model employs four main criteria, technical, economical, social and environmental aspects, and twelve sub-criteria. From the review it was found that renewable resources seem to have a sufficient potential to develop a sustainable electricity system. Furthermore, AHP model prioritize those resources, revealing that solar is the most favorable resource followed by biomass. Hydropower and wind however, are ranked third and fourth, respectively. The model also shows that each resource is inclined towards a particular criterion; solar towards economical, biomass towards social, hydropower towards technical, and wind towards environmental aspect. Besides reporting AHP model for the first time in Malaysian context, the assessment performed in this study, can serve decision makers to formulate long-term energy policy aiming for sustainability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The vision of one of the prominent SME development agency in Malaysia is to become a premier organization in developing local SMEs to grow to be more innovative, resilient, and competitive to compete locally and globally. To achieve these, the agency had conducted an assessment exercise identifying the current levels of SKAP. This paper is to highlight the findings of this study which conducted from November 2011 to February 2012. The study uses the technique of 360° Assessment Feedback and the survey approach to collect the required data and analyzed by using AHP technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of one of the prominent SME development agency in Malaysia is to become a premier organization in developing local SMEs to grow to be more innovative, resilient, and competitive to compete locally and globally. To achieve these, the agency had conducted an assessment exercise identifying the current levels of SKAP. This paper is to highlight the findings of this study which conducted from November 2011 to February 2012. The study uses the technique of 36° Assessment Feedback and the survey approach to collect the required data and analyzed by using AHP technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HSBL University College is one of the privately run institutions of higher learning in Malaysia which offers, among others, various programs in Economics, Accounting and Business Administration. A recent survey conducted by the Faculty of Business (FB) of HSBL found that the students were not fully satisfied with the teaching and learning system of the college. The present work has been carried out to identify the FB students' requirements to improve the efficacy of the teaching and learning system. Having identified the requirements, a number of lecturers were contacted to extract the design requirements that would address the students' needs. The novelty of the paper is that Quality Function Deployment and Analytic Hierarchy Process both have been applied to derive the priorities of the design requirements. The results obtained by the above two methods have shown close resemblance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]