Decision making in equipment selection: an integrated approach with digraph and matrix approach, AHP and ANP

The equipment selection process is considered in the early stage of the design process since the equipment selection process decides the quality, cost, and reliability, which are important for customer satisfaction. Due to the availability of large numbers of equipment, the selection of suitable equipment for certain operation/product becomes much difficult. The selection process is not so easy a task because the equipment features are many and vary from one manufacturer to another, and the features are also being increased constantly. Since the quality, cost, and reliability of a product are decided by proper equipment selection, the equipment selection process becomes more and more important. This paper describes three multi-attributes decision-making methods, namely, digraph and matrix approach, analytical hierarchical process (AHP), and analytical network process (ANP). These methods provide selection indices for different alternatives considered. In this paper, the selection of milling machine is considered. The problem is solved by digraph and matrix approach, AHP, and ANP methods. The results obtained by the three methods are compared and analyzed. Finally, a milling machine is selected as the best one concerning manufacturing environment.