Identifying the Factors Affecting Manufacturing Investment Projects and Using TOPSIS Method for Prioritizing Projects

For many cases, grading and prioritizing the projects are so important in project-based organizations. In fact, it means prioritizing some projects and allocating organizational resource only to those projects to reach the organization profit up to maximum level through such allocation and decision. There are many different factors contribute in choosing the best project combination for organization too. Considering the fact that the value of criteria in projects are usually unclear and vague, and through observing, studying, interview and top managers’ brain storm meetings, the present paper tries to identify the factors affecting manufacturing investment projects, and then to prioritize projects of MAPNA Locomotive Engineering and Manufacturing Company using TOPSIS method. In present study, Shnnon’s weight entropy method is used for determination of weight of parameters. The results of this research show that identifying four main economic, technical, manufacturing and marketing criteria are among the factors influence on choosing a project, and of 19 manufacturing projects of MAPNA Locomotive Engineering and Manufacturing Company P19, P1, P2, P12, and P11 are prioritized from 1st to 5th grade, respectively.