Material Handling Equipment Selection Using Weighted Utility Additive Theory

Abstract

Better utilization of manpower, providing product flexibility, increasing productivity, decreasing lead time, reduction in handling cost, increased efficiency of material flow, and enhancement of production process are some of the most important issues influencing material handling (MH) equipment selection decision. As a wide variety of MH equipment is available today, selection of the proper equipment for a designed manufacturing system is a complicated task. Selection of suitable MH equipment for a typical handling environment is found to be a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. As the selection process is found to be unstructured, characterized by domain dependent knowledge, there is a need to apply an efficient MCDM tool to select the most suitable MH equipment for the given application. This paper applies weighted utility additive (WUTA) method to solve an MH equipment selection problem. The ranking obtained using the WUTA method is compared with that derived by the past researchers which proves its potentiality, applicability, and accuracy to solve complex decision-making problems.