Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) or Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods have received much attention from researchers and practitioners in evaluating, assessing and ranking alternatives across diverse industries. Among numerous MCDA/MCDM methods developed to solve real-world decision problems, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) continues to work satisfactorily across different application areas. In this paper, we conduct a state-of-the-art literature survey to taxonomize the research on TOPSIS applications and methodologies. The classification scheme for this review contains 266 scholarly papers from 103 journals since the year 2000, separated into nine application areas: (1) Supply Chain Management and Logistics, (2) Design, Engineering and Manufacturing Systems, (3) Business and Marketing Management, (4) Health, Safety and Environment Management, (5) Human Resources Management, (6) Energy Management, (7) Chemical Engineering, (8) Water Resources Management and (9) Other topics. Scholarly papers in the TOPSIS discipline are further interpreted based on (1) publication year, (2) publication journal, (3) authors' nationality and (4) other methods combined or compared with TOPSIS. We end our review paper with recommendations for future research in TOPSIS decision-making that is both forward-looking and practically oriented. This paper provides useful insights into the TOPSIS method and suggests a framework for future attempts in this area for academic researchers and practitioners.

Review: A state-of the-art survey of TOPSIS applications

Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems

To meet the challenges of global competitiveness, manufacturing organizations are now facing the problems of selecting appropriate manufacturing strategies, product and process designs, manufacturing processes and technologies, and machinery and equipment. The selection decisions become more complex as the decision makers in the manufacturing environment have to assess a wide range of alternatives based on a set of conflicting criteria. To aid these selection processes, various multi-objective decision-making (MODM) methods are now available. This paper explores the application of an almost new MODM method, i.e., the multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) method to solve different decision-making problems as frequently encountered in the real-time manufacturing environment. Six decision-making problems which include selection of (a) an industrial robot, (b) a flexible manufacturing system, (c) a computerized numerical control machine, (d) the most suitable non-traditional machining process for a given work material and shape feature combination, (e) a rapid prototyping process, and (f) an automated inspection system are considered in this paper. In all these cases, the results obtained using the MOORA method almost corroborate with those derived by the past researchers which prove the applicability, potentiality, and flexibility of this method while solving various complex decision-making problems in present day manufacturing environment.

Applications of the MOORA method for decision making in manufacturing environment

Foundations of Robotics presents the fundamental concepts and methodologies for the analysis, design, and control of robot manipulators It explains the physical meaning of the concepts and equations used, and it provides, in an intuitively clear way, the necessary background in kinetics, linear algebra, and control theory Illustrative examples appear throughoutThe author begins by discussing typical robot manipulator mechanisms and their controllers He then devotes three chapters to the analysis of robot manipulator mechanisms He covers the kinematics of robot manipulators, describing the motion of manipulator links and objects related to manipulation A chapter on dynamics includes the derivation of the dynamic equations of motion, their use for control and simulation and the identification of inertial parameters The final chapter develops the concept of manipulabilityThe second half focuses on the control of robot manipulators Various position-control algorithms that guide the manipulator's end effector along a desired trajectory are described Two typical methods used to control the contact force between the end effector and its environments are detailed For manipulators with redundant degrees of freedom, a technique to develop control algorithms for active utilization of the redundancy is described Appendixes give compact reviews of the function atan2, pseudo inverses, singular-value decomposition, and Lyapunov stability theoryTsuneo Yoshikawa teaches in the Division of Applied Systems Science in Kyoto University's Faculty of Engineering

Foundations of robotics : analysis and control

In order to survive in the present day global competitive environment, it now becomes es- sential for the manufacturing organizations to take prompt and correct decisions regarding effective use of their scarce resources. Various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are now available to help those organizations in choosing the best decisive course of actions. In this paper, the applicability of weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method is explored as an effective MCDM tool while solving eight manufacturing decision making problems, such as selection of cutting fluid, electroplating system, forging condition, arc welding process, industrial robot, milling condition, machinability of materials, and electro-discharge micro-machining process parameters. It is observed that this method has the capability of accurately ranking the alternatives in all the considered selection problems. The effect of the parameteron the ranking performance of WASPAS method is also studied.

/pdf/applications-of-waspas-method-in-manufacturing-decision-4o8zhpra6h.pdf

Applications of WASPAS Method in Manufacturing Decision Making

http://nacomm03.ammindia.org/Articles/Rob006.pdf

Attribute based specification, comparison and selection of a robot

The selection of robot manipulator architecture, i.e. the determination of link lengths, their relative orientations, types of joints, e.g. revolute or prismatic, etc., has been largely done so far by experience, intuition and at most based on the kinematic considerations like workspace, manipulability, etc. Dynamics is generally ignored at this stage even though it is widely used for control and simulation. This paper attempts to introduce a criterion based on the dynamics of a robot manipulator, namely, simplicity of the associated generalized inertia matrix (GIM). Since the GIM influences both the control and simulation algorithms significantly, its fast computation and / or making its shape diagonal will certainly enhance the speed, precision, and stability of the robots. Two measures of simplicity, the computation complexity of the GIM in terms of floating point operations and the computer CPU time of an algorithm where the GIM appears, e.g., the inverse dynamics algorithm, are used here to evaluate a robot arm. The proposed criterion is illustrated with two -link robot arms with revolute and prismatic joints and compared with the two commonly used criteria, namely, the workspace, and manipulability. Finally, an example is taken to select an arm from the two spatial robot architectures, RTX and Stanford.

/pdf/a-dynamic-model-based-robot-arm-selection-criterion-4tpudzl8n5.pdf

A Dynamic Model Based Robot Arm Selection Criterion

Robot selection for an application is generally done based on experience, intuition and at most using the kinematic considerations like workspace, manipulability, etc. Dynamics is ignored at this stage even though it is widely used for robot control and simulation purposes. This paper uses dynamic characteristics of a robot, namely, the computational simplicity of the matrices associated with its dynamic equations of motion, i.e., the generalized inertia matrix, (GIM) and the matrix of convective inertia (MCI) terms. Simplification of these matrices occurs due to specific values of the robot parameters like link masses and lengths, joint sequences, etc. Hence, these parameters can be used as design variables to make some elements of the GIM and MCI vanish or constant. Explicit expressions of the GIM and MCl elements are available due to the use of the concept of the decoupled natural orthogonal compliment (DeNOC) matrices, introduced elsewhere, in deriving the dynamic equations of motion of the robots under study. Selection of robot parameters based on GIM and MCI simplification eases both the control and simulation tasks of the chosen robot, hence, improving its speed, precision and stability.

https://web.iitd.ac.in/~saha/public_html-old/tencon03-pra-proc.pdf

Robot selection using DeNOC-based dynamics

The design of robot manipulators, i.e., the determination of link lengths, their relative orientations, types of joints, e.g., revolute or prismatic, etc., has been largely done so far by experience, intuition and at most based on the kinematic considerations like workspace, manipulability, etc. Dynamics is generally ignored at this stage even though it is widely used for control and simulation. This paper attempts to introduce a criterion based on the dynamics of a robot manipulator, namely, simplicity of the associated Generalized Inertia Matrix (GIM). Since the GIM influences both the control and simulation algorithms significantly, its fast computation and / or making its shape diagonal will certainly enhance the speed, precision, and stability of the robots. Two measures of simplicity, the computation complexity of the GIM in terms of floating point operations and the computer CPU time of an algorithm where the GIM appears, namely, the inverse dynamics algorithm, are used here to evaluate manipulator architecture. The proposed criterion is illustrated with two-link manipulators with revolute and prismatic joints and compared with the two commonly used criteria, namely, the workspace, and manipulability. Finally, an example is taken to select an arm from the two spatial robot architectures, RTX and Stanford.

http://www.angelfire.com/sc/saha/eccomas03.pdf

Prasadkumar P. Bhangale

Papers

Attribute based specification, comparison and selection of a robot

A Dynamic Model Based Robot Arm Selection Criterion

Robot selection using DeNOC-based dynamics

Dynamic model based selection criterion for robot manipulators