Material and process selection in product design using decision-making technique (AHP)

This paper presents a design for manufacture (DFM) paradigm by applying a flexible decision-making technique, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). A material and process selection engine (MPSE) that integrates multiple criteria is presented to assist designers and customers make judicious selections. The new approach applies an analytical hierarchy process to allocate weights (order ranking) to the respective alternatives and has been found to provide good results. This determines the most effective alternative to the overall goal of material and process selection. This DFM-AHP adaptation provides flexibility to include multiple criteria for making design decisions and can be applied to the design of a variety of products. [Received: 11 November 2009; Revised: 25 August 2010; Accepted: 27 November 2010]