Development of a fuzzy-TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making model for material selection with the integration of safety, health and environment risk assessment

Abstract

This study presents the development of a fuzzy-TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model for material selection with integrated safety, health, and environment risk assessment. As safety, health, and environment is very much linked to sustainable design and manufacturing, it is imperative that safety, health, and environment is taken into consideration in ensuring a comprehensive and holistic material selection process. This paper shows the possibility of fuzzy logic utilization in assessing safety, health, and environment risk and proposed a methodology based on fuzzy-TOPSIS MCDM model for material selection suitable for the manufacturing sector. This method has the capability of producing a ranking result with strong reasonings. The proposed method facilitates the designer to select, evaluate, and rank material alternatives based on given attributes from design requirements and weighting given by the decision-makers. Additionally, the other benefits of the proposed methodology are the elimination of a complex structure and/or a black-box algorithm. The fuzzy-TOPSIS approach capable of considering not only the uncertainty related to qualitative judgments but also the uncertainty that may reside in the measurement of quantitative or qualitative parameters that exist within the safety, health, and environment risks assessment. A numerical example of selecting material for automotive body panels using the proposed method has been discussed.