The objective of the present study is to evaluate, determine, and apply alternatives for improving the quality of the process and the product, with an emphasis on sustainable practices, using an integrated multi-criteria method. For this purpose, an analysis was conducted at a chain of bakeries, aiming to highlight bottlenecks in the production process and in the product. With the support of a literature review, four criteria and seven alternatives were defined to overcome these bottlenecks and, at the same time, contribute to the sustainability of the organization. For data analysis, six decision makers were interviewed and, following their evaluations, an integrated method based on fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS was created. The fuzzy AHP was adopted to establish the importance of the criteria, while the fuzzy TOPSIS was used to evaluate and classify the alternatives developed to bypass the bottlenecks. The results revealed that of the criteria, Criterion "Cr1 -Quality" was prioritized. On the other hand, the alternative with the best performance was "A3 -Physical Layout Reorganization". Applying this alternative, the study demonstrates the results achieved such as reduction of errors and accident risks, as well as greater fluidity in the productive space. the present study also makes theoretical and managerial contributions to the field, bringing the theory closer to the reality of companies that operate in the food sector.
K E Y W O R D Smulticriteria methods, organizational sustainability, quality in the production process
INTRODUCTIONCompanies that focus on the production of goods and services and the food sector admit that excellence in quality is a differential when competing in a market.Therefore, organizations have no choice but to continually seek to improve competitive factors through innovations, especially with regard to quality management (Joghee, 2017;