Sustainable Multi-Objective Production Planning for the Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Industry in Saudi Arabia: A Preemptive Goal Programming Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The efforts you put into this study are greatly appreciated, however I have a few comments and concerns, mainly concerning the reading sequence, that are needed to be addressed before endorsing the publication of this work:

The results and findings in the abstract are very minimal. There are no implications and the research goal is unclear. The abstract should be completely rewritten so that it focuses on the research gap and key contributions of the study.

 

There is no specific research issue discussed in the introduction section. An emphasis is placed on goal programming rather than providing a context for a research problem. This study does not yet provide a clear understanding of what is actually being addressed in it. An introduction section should be rewritten to emphasize research issues and literature gaps.

 

“To date, no study has examined the significance of goal programming for increasing 79 the productivity of manufacturing firms.” The statement does not seem to be valid; it should be revised or deleted.

 

A number of studies are listed in the literature section, but what really needs to be done is provide an effective discussion on research gap. It is strongly recommended that the authors avoid descriptive lists of studies and focus instead on what is lacking in the literature and how this study fills in that gap.

 

Generally, the methodology section is standard, However I have great concern over the validity of the resutls. The author should elaborate on how they have validated their results through the development of a new section. I would also ask authors to provide a step-by-step format in this section. It would also be helpful to have a flow chart.

 

The manuscript contains a few typos (line 361), but overall, the quality of the English needs to be greatly improved.

 

There is no discussion section and Implications is compeletly missing.

 

The bullet points should be removed from the conclusion section. It is not clear from the concluding section what this study has accomplished and what its conclusions are.

 

Overall, the manuscript needs a significant revision in almost all sections. The purpose and contributions to the research are challenging to understand. It is necessary to restructure the paper and to make significant improvements in the English and presentation of the paper.

 

 

 

Author Response

I would like to thank the reviewer for his constructive comments. The task has been completed in response to all comments made by the reviewer. The manuscript has been revised to incorporate all the changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The study proposes a goal programming model for production planning in a refrigeration and air conditioning industry firm. Optimal planning of production is essential for sustainable management of operations, therefore the study has several aspects to consider for publication. However, there are some problems with the study in my point of view, which are listed below and needs to be revised before further consideration:

- First of all, the claims that classification of goal programming under multi-objective optimization and multi-criteria decision making and other statements on multi-objective optimization must be relied on proper references.

- The sentence in line 42-45 is not clear to understand. It needs to be revised. If this is a literature review presentation, the structure of this part of the paper is poor. It should be revised. There are some miswritten words like MDMC. Also, the number of studies are inadequate for a literature review.

- It is not appropriate to make a conclusion like it is done in line 79-80 with such a short literature review.

- A paper organization paragraph is needed.

- In my opinion "1.1. related work" title should be changed as "2. literature review".

- Citation provided in line 115 Colapinto et al. (2017) is not suitable for numbering citation style.

- Literature review contents can be divided into several paragraphes in order to increase the readability of the section.

- Studies related to goal programming like "https://doi.org/10.35378/gujs.471083", "https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-019-1878-1" and https://doi.org/10.17341/gazimmfd.539218 can be cited.

- A proper citation for preemptive goal programming model is needed in part 2.2.1.

- The title of section 2.3.1 seems miswritten. It should be revised.

- In model formulation in part 2.4, each equation must be explained verbally by citing eq. numbers.

- Presentation of the model and results can be improved. The authors give explanation of notations and share the values of each parameter. I think a closed-form formulation of the model and parameter values are enough for presentation of the case study. Only the variables with non-zero values can be given in solution results tables.

- There is an incomplete sentence in line 371.

- Deviation variables must be written in text as a mathematical expression. Presentation of a deviation variable like d_5^- is not an appropriate thing for a scientific publication.

- The managerial implications of the results must be improved.

- The conclusions should be extended with limitations and further research suggestions.

 

Author Response

I would like to thank the editor for handling this original research paper. I would like to thank all the referees who invested their time and efforts in providing the opportunity to improve this work. However, I acknowledge the fact that your suggestions were quite helpful in creating a more balanced and informative research work. 
Thank you for your time. I am looking forward to your reply.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This revision has been updated following the first-round review, although authors implemented some changes in the manuscript, the quality of revisions are very poor, and improvements are very minimal. Overall, it looks like that the author has rushed to submit an immature revision with many of the points raised in earlier review unaddressed. My main comments are as follow:

 

1-    Title does not address a research problem and needs revision. It would be helpful if you renamed the paper to reflect the gap that this study helps to fill.

2-    The research issue/gap has not been identified in the abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusion. Please improve your arguments in the entire paper on how this paper has closed the gap and addressed the research issue. Therefore I suggest authors to have a dedicated subsection at the end of the literature review with the title of “research gap and contributions” and clearly discuss the  research gap that they have addressed and outline the contribution of their study (preferably in bullet point format). Author need to realize that the research issue is not modeling and optimization of an entity and therefore in manuscript in its current form does not have add any contribution to the body existing literature.

3-    The quality of the text is very poor, especially in abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusion. I suggest author to use a professional proof-reading service.

4-    Please avoid repetition and tautology in your manuscript. This is very observable in abstract, introduction and literature review.

5-    The implication section is very brief and does not outline a contribution. Please extend this section by focusing how your study improves the theory and practice.

6-    Results are very minimal, and I suggest authors to add additional findings.

 

 

Overall, I suggest authors to take their time and be very mindful with the quality of their revisions. I strongly suggest authors to review my comments in previous revision and reconsider their revision with strong and solid quality to avoid negative outcome.  

 

Author Response

It is my pleasure to thank the reviewer for his constructive comments. The task has been completed based on the reviewer's suggestions. Revised manuscript includes all changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Revised form of the paper is almost adequate for publication. I just request a minor revision on the paper organization paragraph of the introduction section. One of the sections of the paper was not mentioned here.

Author Response

My sincere thanks go out to the reviewer. As per the reviewer's suggestions, the task has been completed. Therefore, a revised manuscript is included.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper has been updated after the second round of review, but the author has yet to demonstrate and implement the requested revisions. As such, I cannot recommend it for publication in its current form. My comments and suggestions from the previous report remain, and the author must address them thoughtfully. Be sure to discuss a clear gap in the introduction and strengthen your reasoning.

The title has to change to refelect on a research issue/gap. The author need to provide reasoning as why there is a need to develop a goal-programming model for sustainable multi-objective production planning of a manufacturing company. How has the reseach helped close the gap in the literature. These are main comments that the author need to proparely address. 

 

 

Author Response

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the reviewer. The task has been completed as per the reviewer's suggestions. In this regard, a revised manuscript is included.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf