Prioritization of Tools in Joint Production–Maintenance Environment of Auto Component Manufacturer Using AHP–Fuzzy–TOPSIS

Abstract

Maintenance of tools is one of the areas of maintenance which has been less explored. While maintenance of machinery has a number of research works to its cause, the same cannot be said for tools. In this paper we have identified the unique maintenance needs of the tools and the challenges it present in case of joint production–maintenance environment especially with regard to efficient allocation of resources. Various methods of maintenance planning are reviewed and their suitability is studied. Due to the resources constraint, prioritization of tools for maintenance becomes important. In this work, we have considered the environment of an auto component manufacturer, where there are a number of tools which needs to be serviced on the basis of time and counter. The approach proposed for prioritization is AHP–Fuzzy–TOPSIS as it provides the best combination of quantitative as well as qualitative parameters. Through the use of this methodology we have presented a final ranking which can be used by management for deciding on the optimum allocation of resources.