The material selection of the heating plates used in the vulcanization process obtained using different MCDM methods

Abstract

The material selection problem is one of the most important steps in the development process of a part of any subassembly assembly, machine, product, etc. The material selection process needs a systematic and time-consuming approach to choose the optimal material to satisfy the product’s requirements. That is to say, many confronting criteria and possible material types (alternatives) available, makes this problem Multi-Criteria Decision-Making problem (MCDM). This paper shows the applicability of the MCDM methodology in the material selection problem for steam heating plates for the vulcanization process used in the inner tube manufacturing process. Specifically, the criteria weights are obtained by CRITIC (Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation), ENTROPY and PIPRECIA (Pivot Pairwise Relative Criteria Importance Assessment) methods, while TOPSIS (Technique for the Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method has been implemented in this process for evaluation and ranking of the possible alternatives (material types).