Evaluating the Cost of Quality and Selecting the Appropriate Option for Cost Reduction using Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS Models (Case Study: The Water and Wastewater Company of Markazi Province)

Nowadays, cost and quality are considered two basic factors which contribute to a competitive advantage in the industry. Hence, in recent years, there has been much interest in examining the relationship between these two competitive advantages, especially in leading industries such as public utilities. Such that, the increase in the competitiveness of these companies has increased the importance of focusing on reducing production costs as well as increasing the quality of services. On the other hand, manufacturers always try to reduce production costs and also maintain the quality of products and services at the level of consumer expectations. Therefore, in this research in the water and wastewater industry, firstly, the most important factors for creating cost of quality are identified and ranked by using the Fuzzy AHP algorithm and the Fuzzy TOPSIS. Also, appropriate solutions have been proposed along with quality cost stimulus factors. The results show that the most costly variable in the quality of the water and wastewater industry is the evaluation cost (36.5%). Other quality costs are, External defeat (28.9%), internal defeat (22.3%), and prevention (12.2%).