A hybrid fuzzy MCDM approach to machine tool selection

The selection of the appropriate machine tools for a manufacturing company is one of the important points to achieving high competitiveness in the market. Besides, an appropriate choice of machine tools is very important as it helps to realize full production quickly. Today's market offers many more choices for machine tool alternatives. There are also many factors one should consider as part of the appropriate machine tool selection process, including productivity, flexibility, compatibility, safety, cost, etc. Consequently evaluation procedures involve several objectives and it is often necessary to compromise among possibly conflicting tangible and intangible factors. For these reasons, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) has been found to be a useful approach to solve this kind of problem. Most of the MCDM models are basically mathematical and ignore qualitative and often subjective considerations. The use of fuzzy set theory allows incorporating qualitative and partially known information into the decision model. This paper describes a fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) based methodology for evaluation and selection of vertical CNC machining centers for a manufacturing company in Istanbul, Turkey. The criteria weights are calculated by using the fuzzy AHP (analytical hierarchy process).