This paper presents a method to determine factors influencing alternator failure causes. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is one of the first systematic techniques for failure analysis based on three factors including Probability (P), Severity (S) and Detection (D). Traditional FMEA method considers equal weights for all three factors, however, in read-world cases; one may wish to consider various weights. The proposed study develops a mathematical model to determine optimal weights based on analytical hierarchy process technique. The implementation of the proposed study has been demonstrated for a read-world case study of alternator failure causes.

Each organization for assessing the amount of utility and desirability of their activities, especially in complex and dynamic environments, requires determining and ranking the vital performance indicators. Indicators provide essential links among strategy, execution and ultimate value creation. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework, which identifies and prioritizes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that a company should focus on them to define and measure progress towards organizational objectives. For this purpose, an applied research was conducted in 2013 in an Iranian telecommunication company. We first determined the objectives of the company with respect to four perspectives of BSC (Balanced Scorecard) framework. Next, performance indicators were listed and paired wise comparisons were accomplished by company & apos; s high-ranked employees through standard Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) questionnaires. This helped us establish the weight of each indicator and to rank them, accordingly.

One of the most important issues in urban planning programs is to allocate necessary spaces for educational applications. Selecting appropriate locations for training centers increases students & apos; mental capabilities. Suitable location for the establishment of educational facilities is the first fundamental step for development of educational systems. The selection of optimal sites for educational facilities involves numerous parameters and it is essential to use multiple criteria decision making approaches to make wise decisions. This paper presents an empirical investigation on facility layout planning for educational systems in city of Birjand, Iran. Using fuzzy GIS as well as analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the study determines the most appropriate candidates for training centers.

This paper determines and ranks financial risk factors in Iranian corporations, using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The present research includes one main question and four sub- questions. Its universe population includes managers, production and financial personnel of great corporations activating in Tehran Stock Exchange, who were selected to explain importance and weight of economic risks indices. The source of great corporations recognition is the Companies Registration Organization in Tehran Province, and according to this, there are 120 corporations. The results have indicated that financing risk maintains the highest priority followed by credit risk, liquidity risk, inflation risk and exchange risk. In terms of different risks associated with financing risk, risk of profit per share has been the number one priority followed by the risk of divisional profit per share, the risk of recessionary or boom and the risk of increasing partial pay profit rate. In terms of credit risk, the risk of loan has been number one priority followed by the risk of inability of loan payment and interest payment. Liquidity risk is another risk factor where demand has been the most important factor followed by rules and regulations and inflation risk. In terms of inflation, producers price risk has been the most important factor followed by consumer price risk, gross domestic product and producers price risk. Finally, in terms of different factors influencing exchange risk, export related issues are considered as the most important factors.

This paper performs an investigation to rank different strategies in an engineering firm in Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among all experts who worked for a firm in engineering field named Kara Sazeh Matin. The study first determines four key strategies for development of firm’s objectives including improvement in buy/sell system and marketing planning, financial and cost management, human resources management and technology management. The study ranks these attributes based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) in fuzzy format. The results indicate the firm must take over one of the well-known construction firms to develop its operations.

This paper prioritizes the trust factors among electronic banking clients of an Iranian bank named Parsian Bank. The study first analyzes and reviews the literature and interviews with experts of electronic banking and academicians and determines client trust as the most important factor for development of electronic banking. The study also determines different factors associated with trust, which includes individual factors, banking factors and infrastructural factors. The sample populations consist of 25 experts who are academicians, managers and bank officers, clients of electronic banking. The necessary data was collected through conducting interviews and questionnaires and they are analyzed using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The research findings indicate that the attitudinal factors, telecommunication infrastructure and cultural factors were the most influential factors accordingly and the customer orientation and ease of access were the least influential factors.

Quality of services in banking industry plays essential role in measuring the performance of banks. As customer awareness increases on the services offered by banks, expectations from service quality increases too. Presently, managers of banks use different financial factors such as deposits, credits, etc. to rank their banks. This paper uses SERVQUAL technique to measure customer satisfaction for 14 branches of a bank in city of Kermanshah, Iran. The study first statistically shows that customer satisfaction was not the same for all these banks and then using analytical hierarchy process and The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) ranks these branches using five components of SERVQUAL method; namely tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy.

Due to the importance and complexity of the portfolio management issue, over 100 different techniques have already been presented. In general, the final result of these tools is to create a prioritized list of the projects that must be selected for allocating resources. The use of financial strategies may be misleading in some cases, and it is necessary to combine these methods with other methods such as strategic approaches in order to guarantee a balanced portfolio toward the organizational strategies. On the other, categorizing projects into different baskets allows the organizations to select, evaluate and prioritize the projects in a subset using a set of similar criteria and techniques. In this article, by choosing agriculture sector as a case study, an attempt has been made to study the evaluation, ranking and management of projects with investment classifying strategy of the projects using Delphi, TOPSIS and AHP methods. The results reveal that in similar cases we can use the presented model by determining the type of activity and investment and localization of the indexes.

In the present paper, a novel intuitionistic fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) is proposed for modelling and solving analytical hierarchy process (AHP) problems with small amount of relationship among various criteria. Assigning a membership degree, fuzzy sets can model some uncertainty to the decision space. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets model the uncertainty more accurately associated with both membership and non-membership degree. Based on advantages of Intuitionistic fuzzy sets, this paper first uses IF-AHP to evaluate the weighting for each criterion and then develops an intuitionistic fuzzy DEMATEL method to establish contextual relationships among those criteria. Finally, an integrated IF-DEMATEL-AHP method is proposed and used for a case study for selecting managers in the automobile industry in Iran.

Significance of identifying human resource competency in organizations and the necessity for valuating human resource in accounting persuade many researchers to design a conceptual model for measuring human resource accounting. This study, first, examines dimensions of various valuation models of human resource and then they are compared with Goleman individual and social competency indicators. Next, individual, organizational and social competency indicators are designed through developing Goleman model. Finally, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and experts’ ideas in human resource accounting in superior universities of the world are used to classify the indicators; and the conceptual model of measuring human resource accounting is designed based on guidelines of management and human capital development vice-presidency and inspiring effort rate of return method.