Developing and ranking the strategies of Zarand power plant using quantitative strategic planning matrix and best-worst method

Abstract

Developing the power plants in any country is considered an economic development strategy as it changes the country’s market despite the competitive pressures. However, to grow the electricity market, policymakers need to evaluate the domestic Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of electric power plants. So, the necessity of a strategic plan for the power plants is inevitable to reach the goals such as eliminating the shortcomings, and meeting the desired criteria of an organization, such as more market share, acceptable profitability, customer satisfaction, increasing profit growth rate, and productivity through economic and cost-effective operations. Therefore, in this paper, the Zarand power plant in Iran is chosen as a case study to develop the associated strategies and rank them. A power plant strategic plan was generated by using a SWOT matrix. Then, the developed strategies were prioritized using a quantitative strategic planning matrix (QSPM) and the best-worst method (BWM). The results confirm that developing the main product (electricity power), managing water consumption, and providing equipment are the most critical strategies for the Zarand power plant. Findings also demonstrated that the results of the BWM method are more accurate and correct than the QSPM method for prioritizing strategies