A well-regarded as well as powerful method named the ‘analytic hierarchy process’ (AHP) uses mathematics and psychology for making and analysing complex decisions. This article aims to present a brief review of the consistency measure of the judgments in AHP. Judgments should not be random or illogical. Several researchers have developed different consistency measures to identify the rationality of judgments. This article summarises the consistency measures which have been proposed so far in the literature. Moreover, this paper describes briefly the functional relationships established in the literature among the well-known consistency indices. At last, some thoughtful research directions that can be helpful in further research to develop and improve the performance of AHP are provided as well.

In the present article, the main principles of the circular economy are outlined in contradistinction with the existing and traditional linear economic model. An econometric model describing the influence of the linear economy on the environment is presented. The environment is characterized by seven key processes: change in global temperature; emissions of greenhouse gases from industry to the environment; emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture to the environment; CO₂ emissions into the environment; depletion of fresh water supplies; reduction of forest cover; and economic damage from climatological disasters. The model describing the impact of the traditional linear economy on the environment consists of seven interdependent econometric equations, each comprising an autoregressive distributed lag (ADL)-model. The proposed econometric model is used to analyze the environmental effects of the present linear economy. Methodological provisions for a transformational transition of the traditional linear economic model to the closed-loop systems, which also permit the impact of the closed-loop systems on the environment to be analyzed, are set out. Seven ecological indicators are proposed as criteria for comparing the traditional linear economy and the closed-loop systems. The manuscript presents a new approach for the determination of ecological criteria for comparing linear and circular economies. The results of the study could be interesting to address circular processes, which can be used as a criterion to establish ecological management according to the status of natural resources.

Standardization has proven to be an efficient regulation mechanism as well as means for storage of best experience. For instance, lean production methods developed in Japan emphasize the importance of decision standardization. In our paper we describe the method for assisting company competitiveness based on evaluation of standardization quality of processes, technologies implemented at a company and products being manufactured. Our method regards standardization as an instrument for analysis of company efficiency, rather than as a process. Indeed, production of new goods of high demand involves revision of design of these goods and technologies for their production. Therefore, the implementation dynamics of new rules, procedures and norms is increasing. Analysis of this dynamics can give us data about company development and development of some particular processes. Comparing development speed of two competing companies can help us to forecast their state of business. To illustrate the described method we give some real data of one of industrial company which produces automobile components as well as data of one of international airports in Russia.

The paper analyses nonconformities in norms, requirements and regulations, which demonstrates that standardization is a crucial factor for quality assurance. It is pointed out that the absence of risk level analysis for each nonconformity is an important drawback of a modern classification.

Modern databases are crucial components of quality management systems according to the requirements of ISO 9001:2015, but their design and maintenance need significant resources. Despite the fact that modern databases are a key factor of management decision making, not all organizations can spend sufficient resources on their development what results in the necessity to find a model for database maintenance in the conditions of limited resources.

Quality Functions Deployment (QFD) is a mechanism which helps to provide product competitiveness. But we should not oversee the fact that this approach is based on the analysis of consumers' opinions, therefore specifics of human perception should be considered while using QFD. From the Weber-Fechner law it is known that improvement of one of product characteristics does not always lead to changes in consumer perception of product qualities. Therefore, consumer assessment of product quality as well as comparison of two competing products should be used in calculations considering the Weber-Fechner law. The fact that consumer assessment should not be used as a linear scale leads to revision of importance calculation of product characteristics and to the need of specifying plans of product improvement.