Applying TRIZ and Fuzzy AHP to develop innovative design for automated manufacturing systems
Innovative design in the development of new product and process has become the core value in most business establishments. These innovative designs are often associated with the long-established trade-off compromises or conflicting performance parameters where speed and reliability, or quality and cost are readily acknowledged. The rate of change in technology and the commercial environment suggests that the opportunity for innovative design is accelerating, and systematic support for innovation process is needed. This study combines the Russian Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for designing the automated manufacturing systems. This study applied the contradiction matrix table, 40 innovative principles, and 39 engineering parameters to compromise the trade-off between design contradictions and engineering parameters. The design engineers can acquire more feasible solutions and inspiration through the proposed approach. However, due to vagueness and uncertainty in the decision-maker's judgment, a fuzzy AHP is employed as a decision support tool that can adequately represent qualitative and subjective assessments under the multiple criteria decision making environment. Moreover, the proposed approach can help decision makers facilitate the selection and evaluation of innovative designs in the presence of intangible attributes and uncertainty. In short, the objectives of this research are to use TRIZ to propose the automated design alternatives under the innovative design consideration, and to use a fuzzy AHP to evaluate and select the best feasible alternative under multiple criteria. A case study of designing automated connector assembly line has been used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
triz automated manufacturing system fuzzy analytical hierarchy process contradiction matrix table