Selection of maintenance policy for textile industry using hybrid multi-criteria decision making approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) under fuzzy environment and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to select an optimum maintenance strategy for a textile industry. Design/methodology/approach - First by using improved AHP with fuzzy set theory, the weight of each criterion is calculated to overcome the criticism of unbalanced scale of judgments, uncertainty, and imprecision in the pair-wise comparison process. Then this paper introduces a model that integrates improved fuzzy AHP with TOPSIS algorithm to support maintenance strategy selection decisions. Findings - An efficient pair-wise comparison process and ranking of alternatives can be achieved for maintenance strategy selection through the integration of AHP with fuzzy set theory and TOPSIS. Originality/value - The paper points out a new insight of multi-criteria decision making techniques to select optimum maintenance policy for a process industry with the use of a case study.