Decision Support for Material Handling Equipment Selection Using a Grey-TOPSIS Multi-Criteria Evaluation Model under Qualitative Indices

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to select an admirable Material Handling Equipment based on gleaned subjective properties. The researchers built a multi-index MHE evaluation module by connecting the general and momentous properties of material handling, which are in vogue in industrial and manufacturing firms and are driving the MHE selection arena. The present study pivots towards developing a competent approach that offers an efficient decision-support framework for managers of industrial and manufacturing firms to evaluate and benchmark the noteworthy MHE amongst available alternatives, operationalised through a built-analogous module. The Grey-TOPSIS approach, which is principally developed by fusing Grey Set Theory and the TOPSIS technique, is employed in this study to develop a conceptual framework for material handling equipment based on qualitative Indices. The present study provided a platform that effectively grasped the experts' lingo and offered chains of subjective properties for evaluating MHEs. The presented approach is built on a multi-index MHE platform, making it easily adopted by firms that prefer an evaluated Material Handling System over their preferred indices. The application of grey set theory is presented in the technical domain of MHE, and the TOPSIS technique is used in this study. It is found that MHE encompasses certain input characteristics that, in turn, contribute to pollution and declining ecological performance; thus, the present study selects an admirable MHE alternative that can efficiently capture inputs that reproduce ecological performance as output. Firms can easily implement the proposed DSF because it is presented as a set of subjective MHE indices and can be technically applied in other decision-making fields that consider subjectivity.