Analytical hierarchy process application in greenness comparison of machine tool system

Abstract

Recently, some activities for environmental protection have been attempted to reduce environmental burdens in many fields. The manufacturing field also requires such reduction. Machine tools are mother machines and widely utilized in the manufacturing fields. Therefore, one of the most important issues to be solved is to develop a system to evaluate environmental burden related to the machine tools. The development of the evaluation system enables us to select among different machining process. This project has developed a framework based on which different machining process can be compared in terms of their environmental impact. Several environmental indicators of machining process were identified based on greenness concept and those with main influence were selected based on expert opinion and by applying MINITAB 14. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was mainly employed as it provides a comprehensive and rational environment for structuring the decision problem at each level. The priority of each indicator was also obtained by AHP method and using EXPERT CHOICE 11.5. These indicators and their assigned priorities were then used to develop the framework. Using the framework developed in this research different machining process can be compared from the greenness aspect.