Abstract

     In the present time of innovation, conveyor is an exceptionally indispensable part and has huge significance for material handling in various process and manufacturing industries. It is made with precisions, and the expenses are relatively high and should work with better productivity. The selection of the best conveyor is a crucial task, and the designers need to recognize different attributes that will influence the functionalities of the conveyor system to limit bottlenecks in the system. Researchers have worked on strategies for finding the best optimum solution for various selection problems, but conveyor selection using selected methods is not reported. Therefore, the present work aims to the selection process of the best option for conveyor by using four selected decision-making methods such as analytical hierarchy process, technique of order preference by similarity to ideal solution, compromise ranking method and Deng’s similarity-based method. The selection is done among four alternatives based on six attributes, viz. fixed cost each hour, variable cost each hour, conveyor speed, product width, product weight and flexibility. The analytical hierarchy process is used to determine weights of the attributes based on relative importance of each attribute. It is observed that A3 conveyor is best suitable conveyor. Hence, the proposed strategies help manufacturers to examine and choose the best conveyor.

Introduction

     Nowadays, the material handling conveyors are the backbone of many industries. A conveyor system is a mechanical device that moves items from one location to another. It is utilized in a variety of processing and manufacturing industries. The different conveyor systems have been established for conveying materials or products from one location to another, depending on the speed of handling, nature, amount, size and weight of commodities to be carried. The determination of the best option of conveyor for developing a dependable and efficient conveyor system will save money and increase production and lowering the risk of workers operating it. The appropriate planning of material handling is also required for minimizing the delivery time, and it leads to lower overall expenses of the manufacturing and improves customer service and reduces inventory cost. In India, 80% of material handling is done by conveyors in most of the industries and the worldwide transport framework market size is projected to arrive at USD 10.6 billion by 2025, from an expected worth of USD 8.8 billion in 2021. Thus, various processing and manufacturing plants are improving the performance of conveyor systems. Therefore, best conveyor must be chosen to reduce impact and wear of the conveyor and thereby increase durability and strength.

Conclusions and future work

     The evaluation of available conveyor and selection of best suitable conveyor is very crucial and important decision for any process industry. The several more conveyors with different properties and specifications are also available. The selection of improper conveyor can directly or indirectly affect the productivity and efficiency of any process industry. Thus, it is important to select the best conveyor for better material handling. The present work shows the easy and logical scientific study to guide any decisionmaker for selecting any best alternative. The methodology done in the present work helps decision-maker to take qualitative decision. The four selected decision-making methods, viz. AHP, TOPSIS, VIKOR and Deng’s similarity-based methods, are used for solving the proposed problem. The AHP method is used for obtaining weights of all attributes and is applicable for the remaining methods as well. It is found from the ranks obtained using selected methods that A3 conveyor is the best suitable choice for material handling among the four alternatives. It is observed that ranking of conveyor has some deviation in the rankings due to different mathematical approaches used in the four methods. Finally, it is concluded that these methods are very helpful for making decision in complex problems.