Selection of software in manufacturing operations using analytic hierarchy process

Manufacturing is a complex process of utilizing resources to produce parts according to the customer orders. The quality of decision-making plays a significant role in complex situations. Decision Support Systems (DSS) help in improving the decision making process by providing access to data through procedures and analytical reasoning. For small or medium-sized enterprises (SME), these DSS software packages enhance the work efficiency and also there by the related service revenues. Multiple DSS software packages are available in the market. Improper decision on selection of these software packages result in great economic loss. Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods play an important role in such software selection. MCDM is concerned with selection of the optimum choice of action among alternatives based on multiple discrete attributes or decision criteria. In this paper, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as a method for selecting capacity planning software. In order to demonstrate our approach, we use a case study methodology which involves a real case in manufacturing environment. Four criteria parameters and three alternative softwares are considered for demonstration. AHP is used to produce the ranking of the selected alternatives. We also explained the structured steps of AHP and highlight our insights with respect to which software selection would be the most appropriate for which types of companies.