MCDM approach for selection of raw material in pulp and papermaking industry

Selection of a suitable fibrous raw material for the pulp and papermaking industries is a tedious process involving a lot of experimental procedures. This process can be reduced to some extent through computer-based simulation tools and treating the problem as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. In the present study, selection of fibrous raw material is treated as an MCDM problem where chemical, morphological and physical properties of the fibers are considered as different criteria and study is done in context of Indian Pulp and Paper Mills. TOPSIS, its fuzzy variant (FTOPSIS) and its modified variant (MTOPSIS) are employed to identify the suitable selection of fibers. The results obtained by these methods when discussed with experts indicate that MCDM tools like TOPSIS (and its variants) can be an attractive alternative for simulation-based selection of fibrous raw material for pulp and paper industries.