Indifferent Points in The Multicriteria Decision Making Problems (A Case Study of Suppliers’ Evaluation in Zanjan Province Gas Company)

Evaluating and selecting the right contractors can increase the chances of success of a project and the organization. Considering the intense competition faced by organizations today, proper cost management to enhance profitability and customer satisfaction has attracted a lot of attention. The evaluation of contractors is usually a process that is based on various criteria. By the end of it, the appropriate options are selected. Given the diversity in the criteria and among the decision-making subjects, no single way has been offered to suggest substitution between criteria. The desirability indifference on the curve of consumption of various goods (selection of decision-making options) is the same. This paper seeks to identify parallel matrices with the initial decision-making matrix of contractors that have the same results and desirability for decision-makers (indifference points). At first, the initial rating using the AHP and TOPSIS methods and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA) techniques, along with MATLAB software, was used to identify the parallel matrices. According to the obtained results, six parallel matrixes with the initial decision-making matrix that had been prepared by experts from the company were produced. Out of them, the matrix related to The point of indifference is the fifth output5 AHP-PSO, based on the company experts' opinions was selected as the final version.