A Decision Support System for the Selection of a Rapid Prototyping Process

쾌속조형공정 선정을 위한 지원 시스템

This paper presents a methodology to be able to select an appropriate RP system that suits the end use of a part. Evaluation factors used in process selection include major attributes such as accuracy, roughness, strength, elongation, part cost and build time that greatly affect the performance of RP systems. Crisp values such as accuracy and surface roughness are obtained with a new test part developed. The test part is designed with conjoint analysis to reflect users' preference. The part cost and build time that have approximate ranges due to cost and many variable parameters are presented by linguistic values that can be described with triangular fuzzy numbers. Based on the evaluation values obtained, an appropriate RP process for a specific part application is selected by using the modified TOPSIS(Technique of Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method. It uses crisp data as well as linguistic variables, and each weight on the alternatives is assigned by using pair-wise comparison matrix. The ranking order helps the decision making of the selection of RP systems.