Development of an Approach for the Holistic Assessment of Innovation Projects in Manufacturing Including Potential, Effort, and Risk Using a Systematic Literature Review and Expert Interviews

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Good abstract but, need elaborations and findings and conclusion

Good introduction. Best to provide some brief on the industrial revolution, up to 5.0.

Sections 5 and 6 proposed to be combined in providing better discussions.

Reference and citations need to be improved based on the journal's needs

Around 50% of the citation is more than 7 years. The author need to improve

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer’s comments:

Manuscript ID: applsci-2223507

I have reviewed the concept paper entitled “Approach for the Holistic Assessment of Innovation Projects in Manufacturing including Potential, Effort, and Risk”. The researchers gave interesting information and great insight for assessing innovation in manufacturing including potential, effort, and risk. In the time modern technological developments and globalization, manufacturing industries are really face day-to-day challenges. Thus, in this respect, an approach for the holistic assessment of innovation projects is our need which the authors emphasized through their concept paper. The paper is well-designed, well-described, and clarity in methodology. I am recommending this paper to accept.

Thank you.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript applied a multi-method approach in eliciting the challenges of innovation projects in manufacturing. There are a number of issues raised below to address before publication.

1) The main title must be rephrased to capture the main research method adopted. 

2) The idea of industry 5.0 has been misconstrued within this manuscript. Industry 5.0 is a new way of working whereby human along with AI/robots  to enhance processes. In this manuscript. The authors seems to have misapplied industry 5.0 in their context.

3) Table 2 is too tiny and illegible. The words are too tiny and cannot be viewed easily without zoom in, extensively.

4) Expert interviews and expert workshops were applied according to table 2. There needs to be a table/section highlighting the outcomes of the expert interviews and workshops. For instance, line 263 stated that "In addition, eight expert interviews were conducted with representatives from the manufacturing industry". Provide further details on this data collection process and the outcome of the analysis on the overall process described earlier. 

5) The discussion section is too brief. Provide more detailed contribution to knowledge and implications for project innovation by juxtaposing it with other previous studied. 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The authors consider the assessment of innovation projects in manufacturing industry. After a comprehensive literature anaysis the authors identify three groups of criteria according to potential, effort and risk and finally present three possible starting points for the development and continuation of research activities: extension of the criteria, further inclusion of cause effect relationships and further industrial validation (in other cases). The authors use a combination of AHP, TOPSIS and Fuzzy set theory for optimal decision making. The paper is quite well written and I recomend it to be published in Applied Sciences. I have just one comment/question for authors (please see lines  467-468): please explain the decision process in detail (corresponding to Table 1 and Fig. 7) why the 2nd best-in-class alternative is the best? 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Some of the corrections have been applied in the revised version. However, it would have been more appropriate for the authors to colour code or track the changes in the revised file. There are two main issues with this submission.

1) Authors must produce a table or figure highlighting the expert interviews as a form of analysis in the validation process. Page 9 and figure 3 do not help just because it is still unclear how the expert interviews were applied in the analysis. Hence, it will be sufficient to produce more clarity on this section with a Table or Figure. What is the profile of the respondents? What makes them experts in their professions, experience or roles?

2) The discussion and perspectives should be titled "implications of findings" since significant discussions have been produced in the preceding section.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf