The effect of information systems on the supply chain sustainability using DEMATEL method

Stakeholder pressure from investors, shareholders, customers and nonprofits to push sustainability into the supply chain has significantly increased in recent years. Information systems are also one the inseparable parts of any company and organization. The relationship between this two has not been investigated in any research; in this paper we analyzed the effect of the information systems on the supply chain sustainability and Mobarakeh Steel Company was selected as the case study. Data was obtained through professional interviews with 32 experts and top managers of this company and then was analyzed by using DEMATEL method. Results showed that E-business, E-commerce and JIT are the most effective information systems on the supply chain sustainability and economical and environmental factors are the most affectable factors of the sustainable supply chain.


Introduction
Information systems consists of a collection of people, processes, data, models, technology and partly formalized language, forming a cohesive structure which serves some organizational purpose or function.Today's companies and organizations use different information systems in order to achieve their goals faster and cheaper.Since 1960s until now, information systems have improved and brought a lot of advantages to organizations and companies.Managing a supply chain includes activities such as material sourcing, production scheduling, and the physical distribution system, supported by the necessary information flows.While there has been a plethora of literature on the adoption of material requirements planning (MRP), manufacturing resource planning (MRPII), enterprise resource planning (ERP), supplier relationships http://www.ispacs.com/journals/cacsa/2016/cacsa-00053/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services management (SRM), customer relationships management (CRM) and other information systems to improve supply chain management [1].To that end, there is a rapidly growing body of literature that focuses on the integration of sustainability with supply chain management (SCM).Given the many players in a supply chain (e.g., suppliers, focal firm, distributors, retailers, customers, etc.), this is a more challenging issue than integrating sustainability into the operations of a single firm [2].Due largely to pressures from various stake-holders, especially government regulators, community activists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and global competition, many companies have adopted a certain level of commitment to sustainability practices [3].Despite of a lot of researches which have been done in the scope of information systems usage and also supply chain sustainability, the effect of information systems on the supply chain sustainability has not been investigated yet and it shows the need of researches on this area.The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of different information systems on the supply chain sustainability by using Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method.In this paper, firstly theoretical concepts and literature are presented and then by using literature and experts opinions, most important information systems and also supply chain sustainability metrics are determined and then the effect of information systems on the supply chain sustainability is investigated through an exploratory research using DEMATEL method, in the biggest steel company of Iran, Mobarakeh Steel Complex.Result and suggestions are presented in the last sections.

Information systems
An information system can be defined technically as a set of interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization.In addition to supporting decision making, coordination, and control, information systems may also help managers and workers analyze problems, visualize complex subjects, and create new products.Using an information system can enable a business to streamline its operations into a cohesive functioning unit.Information systems support business decision-making by providing management with critical data.They serve to enhance the organization's communication, reduce human labor, support short-and long-term business goals and distribute complex information [4].According to [5], different information systems have improved since 1960s.Table 1 shows the review of these information systems on this research.Koh et all, 2008, who investigated the use of information systems for logistics and supply chain management in [1], considered WMS, MRP and bar coding, as the most popular information systems in use.Table 2. Shows the information systems currently in used and intend to implement in the future, along with a summary of each information system function.Centralizes, integrates and processes information for effective decision making in scheduling, design engineering, inventory management and cost control in manufacturing.

ERP
Manages the efficient and effective use of resources (materials, human resources, finance, etc.) by providing a total, integrated solution for the organization's information-processing needs.WMS Supports the day-to-day operations in a warehouse and enable centralized management of tasks such as tracking inventory levels and stock locations.SCM Manages flows between and among supply chain stages to maximize total supply chain profitability CRM entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customers SRM Systematizes organization interactions with individuals or organizes the delivery of raw goods and services APS provides comprehensive information technology solutions that integrates business and technology strategies JIT Allows companies to reduce their overhead expenses while always ensuring that parts are available to manufacture their products.

E-commerce
Enables business of goods and services via the web.

E-business
Uses ICT to enhance one's business including any process that a business organization conducts over a computer-mediated network.

DSS
Aids the process of decision making and utilizes data, provides an easy-to-use interface, and allows for the decision maker's own insights.

RFID
Uses radio waves to automatically identify individual items.EDI Exchanges business documents in a standard electronic format between business partners.Bar coding encodes information in a visual pattern that a machine can read

Supply chain sustainability
As in [6], we define a supply chain as all parties involved in fulfilling a customer order.In the last decade, customers and government regulations are forcing companies to reduce the products and their processes' Environmental impacts [7].Feedback between supply chain and stability is the next phase of the operation and the environment.Members of the Europe Union formed a group that aimed to implement and enforce Law that makes manufacturers responsible for collecting, recycling and safe disposal of their waste [8].
Carter and Roger in [9] provided the following definition of SSCM as "the strategic, transparent integration and achievement of an organization's social, environmental, and economic goals in the systemic coordination of key inter organizational business processes for improving the long-term economic performance of the individual company and its supply chains".Seuring and Muller in [10] have also noticed high diversity of sustainability comprehension in supply chain management and referred to "the triple bottom line approach, where a minimum performance is to be achieved in the environmental, economic and social dimensions.This can be comprehended as being in line with the notion of order qualifiers a company has to fulfill before it is able to even compete for orders".The main aspects of the TBL approach are presented in Fig.

Research methodology
In this paper, after reviewing the literature, the main indicators of the sustainable supply chain was identified and are presented in the table 4, then after consultation with the Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC) experts, they were categorized in order to make the analyze easier.We choose this company because MSC is the largest steel producer in Middle East and Northern Africa and the largest DRI producer in the world.Guided by a mission to play the leading role in Iran's industrial, financial, and social growth, it is the quality producer of more than 50% of Iran's steel in all major markets including automotive, construction, household appliances, and packaging.Mobarakeh Steel operates in seven industrial complexes and employs more than 20,000 people in different parts of the country and have some more experiences related to the information systems like ERP, CRM and DSS, moreover since this company is located in a hot and dry state and also near the one of the longest rivers in Iran, Zayandeh Roud, it is faced with environmental NGOs to reduce its environmental effects.MSC was the first company in Iran which could get the ISO 14000 certification in 1998 and has done a lot of environmental projects such as reducing CO gas emission to the 200ppm, wastewater treatment and Canopy Hood Installation on steel furnaces.DEMATEL method was used to analyze the data, it is developed by the Science and Human Affairs Program of the Battelle Memorial Institute of Geneva between 1972 and 1976 and was used to research and solve complicated and intertwined problem groupsand.There are 4 steps in the DEMATEL method: 1. Calculate the average matrix.Comparison scale of DEMATEL is: (0: No influence, 1: Very low influence, 2: Low influence, 3: High influence, 4: Very high influence).In this matrix   shows the effect of i on j.
2. Calculate the normalized initial direct influence matrix.The normalized matrix is calculated by: N: K × M (3.1) α: 4. Set a threshold value and obtain the impact-relation map.In order to explain the structural relationship among the factors while keeping the complexity of the system to a manageable level, it is necessary to set a threshold value p to filter out the negligible effects in matrix T.Only those factors that have an effect in matrix T greater than the threshold value should be chosen and shown in an impact-relations map.In this Step, the threshold value can be chosen by the decision maker or through discussions with experts and also the mean value of the T matrix.In this matrix D shows the effectiveness of the variable on the other variables and R shows the affectability of the variable and are calculated as below: The applicability of the DEMATEL method is very various in analyzing problems and decision making science.Since the aim of this research is determining the relations between different information systems and supply chain sustainability and also the ability of this method to show the relationship between multivariables that we applied into DEMATEL to analyze the data.As it is said before, first step of this method needs a relationship matrix between variables, so we choose 32 information systems experts and top managers of the MSC and professional interviews was done, each interview had 3 parts and lasted 30-45 http://www.ispacs.com/journals/cacsa/2016/cacsa-00053/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services minutes.After that by collecting the experts and manager's opinions, the first relationship matrix was calculated and then it was analyzed by DEMATEL method.

Results
Step 1.The relationship matrix between main indicators of the sustainable supply chain and also the main information systems is presented in table 4.  Step 3. The total relation matrix is calculated by using (3.3) and presented below.Step 4: The average value of the matrix T was selected as threshold value, p : 0.1021, and the effects below threshold were considered 0 and then the data required to draw the impact-relation map were calculated and are presented in Table .7.The aim of this paper was analyzing the relationships between information systems and supply chain sustainability.In order to find the relations, we choose Mobarakeh Steel Company as a leading company in information systems and also one of the companies with some practices in sustainable supply chain in Iran.32 information systems experts and managers were selected and by professional interviews, data was obtained and was analyzed by using DEMATEL method.The analysis showed that the third group of information systems including E-Business, E-Commerce and Just in Time, have most the effect on the supply chain sustainability; RFID, EDI, barcoding are in the second place and ERP, MRP and MRP II are the next most effective information systems.On the other hand, economical factors like profit, cost, and market share and also environmental factors like reduction of Carbon footprint and water waste, are the most affectable factors in the sustainable supply chain.As the results showed, in order to have a sustainable supply chain by application of information systems, there should be enough attention on the E-business and technological information systems like RFID and EDI and it is amazing that the most effect of these applications is on the economical and organizational factors of the company that would satisfy top managers and stakeholders.The first step of application is providing software and hardware infrastructures and along with this, staff needs to be trained well.As it is the first research in this area, further researches in different cases would show the relations better and also investigations on the methods to analysis the information systems applications, are beneficial.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: The main aspects of the TBL approach

3 . 2 ) 3 .
Derive the total relation matrix: The total relation matrix T is an n × n matrix and is defined as follows: T: N × ( I -N ) -1(3.3)

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: the impact-relation map

Table 2 :
Information systems currently in use and their functions Information Systems Function MRP Assists production managers in scheduling and placing orders for items of dependent demand.MRPII

Table 3 :
Supply chain sustainability factors International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services

Table 7
As it is shown in Table, the most effective information systems on the sustainable supply chain are JIT, EB and EC and then RFID, EDI and Bar coding and we can see that the most affectable criteria in the sustainable supply chain is economical factors as profit, market share and etc.The impact-relation map and the main relations are presented in Fig.2.