International Journal of Production Research

ISSN: 0020-7543 (Print) 1366-588X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tprs20

Decision making in the manufacturing

environment using an improved PROMETHEE
method

R. Venkata Rao & B.K. Patel

To cite this article: R. Venkata Rao & B.K. Patel (2010) Decision making in the manufacturing
environment using an improved PROMETHEE method, International Journal of Production
Research, 48:16, 4665-4682, DOI: 10.1080/00207540903049415

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207540903049415

Published online: 14 Jul 2009.

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International Journal of Production Research
Vol. 48, No. 16, 15 August 2010, 4665–4682

Decision making in the manufacturing environment using

an improved PROMETHEE method
R. Venkata Rao* and B.K. Patel

Department of Mechanical Engineering, S.V. National Institute of Technology, Ichchanath,

Surat, Gujarat 395 007, India
(Received 31 March 2009; final version received 1 May 2009)

Decision makers in the manufacturing sector frequently face the problem of

assessing a wide range of alternative options, and selecting one based on a set
of conflicting criteria. This paper helps to understand and solve this important
problem using a multiple criteria decision making method known as Preference
Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE).
The method is improved in the present work by integrating with analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) and the fuzzy logic. The method discussed in this
paper is very effective for decision making in various real-life situations of the
manufacturing environment. Four examples are included to illustrate the method.
Keywords: decision making; manufacturing environment; PROMETHEE; AHP;
fuzzy logic

1. Introduction
Manufacturing technologies have continually gone through gradual but revolutionary
changes. Fast-changing technologies on the product front cautioned the need for an
equally fast response from the manufacturing industries. To meet the challenges,
manufacturing industries have to select appropriate manufacturing strategies, product
designs, manufacturing processes, work piece and tool materials, machinery and
equipment, etc. The selection decisions are complex, as decision making is more
challenging today. Necessary conditions for achieving efficient decision making consist
of understanding the current and upcoming events and factors influencing the whole
manufacturing environment, in exploring the nature of decision-making processes and the
reach of different typologies of methods and techniques, and finally in structuring
appropriately the decision-making approach based on a wide range of issues related
to manufacturing systems design, planning, and management (Rao 2007).
Decision makers in the manufacturing sector frequently face the problem of assessing
a wide range of alternative options, and selecting one based on a set of conflicting criteria.
It must be noted that in choosing the right alternative, there is not always a single definite
criterion of selection, and decision makers have to take into account a large number
of criteria. There is a need for simple, systematic, and logical methods or mathematical

*Corresponding author. Email: ravipudirao@gmail.com

ISSN 0020–7543 print/ISSN 1366–588X online

ß 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00207540903049415
http://www.informaworld.com
4666 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

tools to guide decision makers in considering a number of selection criteria and their
interrelations. The objective of any selection procedure is to identify appropriate selection
criteria, and obtain the most appropriate combination of criteria in conjunction with the
real requirement. Thus, efforts need to be extended to identify those criteria that influence
an alternative selection for a given problem, using simple and logical methods, to eliminate
unsuitable alternatives, and to select the most appropriate alternative to strengthen
existing selection procedures. This paper presents one such simple, systematic and logical
method, called PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment
Evaluations).
A lot of applications of PROMETHEE in various fields of science and technology
can be found in the literature (Behzadian et al. 2009). However, only a few applications are
found in the field of manufacturing such as, scheduling (Belz and Mertens 1996,
Araz 2005, Duvivier et al. 2007, Roux et al. 2008), maintenance planning (Petrovie et al.
1988, Chareonsuk et al. 1997, Waeyenbergh et al. 2004, Cavalcante and De Almeida 2007),
manufacturing system/technology selection (Parsaei et al. 1993, Kolli and Parsaei 1992,
Anand and Kodali 2008), equipment selection (Dagdeviren 2008), and production/
assembly planning strategies (Pierre et al. 2001, Chen and Liao 2003). Furthermore, the
researchers had mainly focused upon the quantitative criteria and had not effectively
considered the fuzzy and/or linguistic criteria.
The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate and validate the PROMETHEE
method for some more decision making situations of the manufacturing environment
considering both crisp and fuzzy criteria. A ranked value judgment on a fuzzy conversion
scale for the qualitative criteria is introduced and the method is used in conjunction with
the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for determining the relative importance of criteria.
The next section presents the improved PROMETHEE methodology for decision making
in the manufacturing environment.

2. Improved PROMETHEE methodology

The PROMETHEE method was introduced by Brans et al. (1984) and belongs to the
category of outranking methods. Like all outranking methods, PROMETHEE proceeds to
a pairwise comparison of alternatives in each single criterion in order to determine partial
binary relations denoting the strength of preference of an alternative a1 over alternative a2.
In the evaluation table, the alternatives are evaluated on different criteria. The implemen-
tation of PROMETHEE requires additional types of information, namely:
. information on the relative importance or the weights of the criteria considered,
and
. information on the decision maker preference function, which he/she uses when
comparing the contribution of the alternatives in terms of each separate criterion.
It may be added here that the original PROMETHEE method can effectively deal
mainly with quantitative criteria. However, there exists some difficulty in the case of
qualitative criteria. In the case of a qualitative criterion (i.e. quantitative value is not
available); a ranked value judgment on a fuzzy conversion scale is adopted in this paper.
By using fuzzy set theory, the value of the criteria can be first decided as linguistic terms,
converted into corresponding fuzzy numbers and then converted to the crisp scores. Rao
(2007) had presented a logical approach based on the work of Chen and Hwang (1992).
 International Journal of Production Research 4667

The presented numerical approximation system systematically converts linguistic terms to

their corresponding fuzzy numbers. It contains eight conversion scales and in the present
work, an eleven-point scale is considered for better understanding and representation.
Table 1 is suggested which represents the selection criterion on a qualitative scale using
fuzzy logic, corresponding to the fuzzy conversion scale as shown in Figure 1 and helps
the users in assigning the values. Once a qualitative criterion is represented on a scale then
the alternatives can be compared with each other on this criterion in the same manner as
that for quantitative criteria.
The methodology presented in this paper for decision making in the manufacturing
environment using improved PROMETHEE method is described below:
Step I: Identify the selection criteria for the considered decision making problem and
short-list the alternatives on the basis of the identified criteria satisfying the requirements.
A quantitative or qualitative value or its range may be assigned to each identified criterion
as a limiting value or threshold value for its acceptance for the considered application.
An alternative with each of its criterion, meeting the criterion, may be short-listed.

Table 1. Values of selection criterion.

Qualitative measures of selection criterion Assigned value

Exceptionally low 0.045

Extremely low 0.135
Very low 0.255
Low 0.335
Below average 0.410
Average 0.500
Above average 0.590
High 0.665
Very high 0.745
Extremely high 0.865
Exceptionally high 0.955

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
µ(x)

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
x

Figure 1. Linguistic terms to fuzzy numbers conversion.

4668 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Step II
(1) After short-listing the alternatives, prepare a decision table including the measures
or values of all criteria for the short-listed alternatives.
(2) The weights of relative importance of the criteria may be assigned using analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) method (Saaty 2000). The steps are explained below:
. Find out the relative importance of different criteria with respect to the
objective. To do so, one has to construct a pair-wise comparison matrix
using a scale of relative importance. The judgments are entered using the
fundamental scale of the AHP. A criterion compared with it is always
assigned the value 1 so the main diagonal entries of the pair-wise
comparison matrix are all 1. The numbers 3, 5, 7, and 9 correspond to
the verbal judgments ‘moderate importance’, ‘strong importance’, ‘very
strong importance’, and ‘absolute importance’ (with 2, 4, 6, and 8 for
compromise between the previous values). Assuming M criteria, the pair-
wise comparison of criterion i with criterion j yields a square matrix AM  M
where rij denotes the comparative importance of criterion i with respect to
criterion j. In the matrix, rij ¼ 1 when i ¼ j and rji ¼ 1/rij.
. Find the relative normalised weight (Wi) of each criterion by (i) calculating
the geometric mean of ith row and (ii) normalising the geometric means
of rows in the comparison matrix. This can be represented as
( )1=M
YM
GMi ¼ rij ð1Þ
j¼1

and

X
M
Wi ¼ GMi = GMi ð2Þ
i¼1

The geometric mean method of AHP is used in the present work to find out
the relative normalised weights of the criteria because of its simplicity and
easiness to find out the maximum eigen value and to reduce the
inconsistency in judgments.
. Calculate matrix A3 and A4 such that A3 ¼ A1  A2 and A4 ¼ A3/A2,
where A2 ¼ [W1, W2, . . . , WM]T.
. Find out the maximum Eigen value max (i.e. the average of matrix A4).
. Calculate the consistency index CI ¼ (max  M)/(M  1). The smaller the
value of CI, the smaller is the deviation from the consistency.
. Obtain the random index (RI) for the number of criteria used in decision
making (Saaty 2000).
. Calculate the consistency ratio CR ¼ CI/RI. Usually, a CR of 0.1 or less is
considered as acceptable and it reflects an informed judgment that could be
attributed to the knowledge of the analyst about the problem under study.
Step III: After calculating the weights of the criteria using AHP method, the next step
is to have the information on the decision maker preference function, which he/she uses
when comparing the contribution of the alternatives in terms of each separate criterion.
 International Journal of Production Research 4669

The preference function (Pi) translates the difference between the evaluations obtained
by two alternatives (a1 and a2) in terms of a particular criterion, into a preference degree
ranging from 0 to 1. Let Pi,a1a2 be the preference function associated to the criterion ci.
Pi,a1a2 ¼ Gi ½ci ða1Þ  ci ða2Þ ð3Þ

0  Pi,a1a2  1 ð4Þ
where Gi is a non-decreasing function of the observed deviation (d) between two
alternatives a1 and a2 over the criterion ci. In order to facilitate the selection of a specific
preference function for a criterion, six basic types were proposed (Brans et al. 1984, 1986,
Marinoni 2005). These include ‘usual function’, ‘U-shape function’, ‘V-shape function’,
‘level function’, ‘linear function’, and ‘Gaussian function’. Preference ‘usual function’
is equal to the simple difference between the values of the criterion ci for alternatives a1
and a2. For other preference functions, no more than two parameters (threshold q, p or s)
have to be fixed (Brans and Mareschall 1994, Wang and Yang 2007). Indifference
threshold q is the small value with respect to the scale of measurement. Preference
threshold p is the large value with respect to the scale of measurement. Gaussian threshold
s is only used with the Gaussian preference function. It is usually fixed as an intermediate
value between indifference and a preference threshold.
The ‘usual function’ is an easy to use preference function and is generally used
with quantitative criteria. ‘U-shape function’ uses a single indifference threshold and is
generally used with qualitative criteria. ‘V-shape function’ uses a single preference
threshold and is often used with quantitative criteria. ‘Level function’ is similar to U-shape
but with an additional preference threshold and it is mostly used with qualitative criteria.
‘Linear function’ is similar to V-shape but with an additional indifference threshold and
is often used with quantitative criteria. ‘Gaussian function’ is rarely used.
Let the decision maker have specified a preference function Pi and weight wi for each
criterion ci(i ¼ 1, 2, . . . , M) of the problem. The multiple criteria preference index Oa1a2
is then defined as the weighted average of the preference functions Pi:
Y X
M

a1a2
¼ wi Pi,a1a2 ð5Þ
i¼1

Oa1a2 represents the intensity of preference of the decision maker of alternative a1 over
alternative a2, when considering simultaneously all the criteria. Its value ranges from 0 to
1. This preference index determines a valued outranking relation on the set of actions.
As an example, the schematic calculation of the preference indices for a problem consisting
of three alternatives and four criteria is given in Figure 2 (Marinoni 2005).
For PROMETHEE outranking relations, the leaving flow, entering flow and the net
flow for an alternative a belonging to a set of alternatives A are defined by the following
equations:
XY
’þ ðaÞ ¼ xa ð6Þ
x"A
XY
’ ðaÞ ¼ ax ð7Þ
x"A

’ðaÞ ¼ ’þ ðaÞ  ’þ ðaÞ ð8Þ

4670 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Figure 2. Preference indices for a problem consisting of three alternatives and four criteria.

’þ(a) is called the leaving flow, ’(ai) is called the entering flow and ’(ai) is called the
net flow. ’þ(a) is the measure of the outranking character of a (i.e. dominance of
alternative a over all other alternatives) and ’(a) gives the outranked character of a
(i.e. degree to which alternative a is dominated by all other alternatives). The net flow,
’(a), represents a value function, whereby a higher value reflects a higher attractiveness
of alternative a. The net flow values are used to indicate the outranking relationship
between the alternatives. For example, for each alternative a, belonging to the set A of
alternatives, Oa1a2 is an overall preference index of a1 over a2, taking into account all the
criteria, ’þ(a), and ’(a). Alternative a1 outranks a2 if ’(a1) 4 ’(a2) and a1 is said to be
indifferent to a2 if ’(a1) ¼ ’(a2).
The proposed decision making framework using PROMETHEE method provides
a complete ranking of the alternatives from the best to the worst one using the net flows.
A computer program is developed in the present work in MATLAB environment that
can be used for improved PROMETHEE calculations. Any number of alternatives and the
criteria can be considered and the time required for computation is less.
Now four examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the improved
PROMETHEE method to the decision making problems of the manufacturing
environment.

3. Examples
3.1 Example 1: Cutting fluid selection for a given machining application
The use of cutting fluid during a machining operation is essential. However, after the
publishing of ISO 9000 quality management standards, the ISO 14000 environmental
management system standards, and the OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety
 International Journal of Production Research 4671

assessment series, minimising the environmental impact of the manufacturing industry has
become an important topic for all manufacturers.
A cutting fluid selection criterion may be defined as a property or characteristic of the
cutting fluid, or a machining process variable on which the cutting fluid has influence.
The selection of cutting fluids is more an art, than a science, because there is almost no
standardised method available for this purpose. Different metal cutting operations have
been used to evaluate cutting fluids, and the performance of a cutting fluid judged by
the resulting machining process output variables such as: tool life, cutting forces, power
consumption, surface finish, etc. So far, cutting fluids have been evaluated in terms of their
performance with respect to each machining process output variable separately, and then
the final decision regarding selection was taken, in a subjective manner, keeping in mind
the overall performance. A few researchers, such as Rowe (1982), Rao and Gandhi (2001),
Sun et al. (2001), Tan et al. (2002) and Rao (2004), had presented some mathematical
models for cutting fluid selection. Now, an example of a grinding operation is considered
to demonstrate and validate the application of PROMETHEE method for cutting fluid
selection.
Step I: The problem considering eight criteria and four alternative grinding fluids is
shown in Table 2. The eight criteria used to evaluate the four short-listed alternatives
included four machining process output variables wheel wear (WW), tangential force (TF),
grinding temperature (GT), and surface roughness (SR), and four cutting (i.e. grinding)
fluid properties and characteristics recyclability (R), toxic harm rate (TH), environment
pollution tendency (EP), and stability (S). The cutting fluid properties and characteristics
are expressed in linguistic terms. These linguistic terms are converted to fuzzy scores as
explained in Section 2 using Table 1. Table 3 presents the objective data of cutting fluid
selection criteria accordingly.

Table 2. Data of cutting fluid selection criteria of example 1.

Cutting fluid WW (mm) TF (N) GT ( C) SR (mm) R TH EP S

1 0.035 34.5 847 1.76 L A AA AA

2 0.027 36.8 834 1.68 L H H H
3 0.037 38.6 808 2.40 AA AA BA A
4 0.028 32.6 821 1.59 A AA AA BA

WW, wheel wear; TF, tangential force; GT, grinding temperature; SR, surface roughness;
R, recyclability; TH, toxic harm rate; EP, environment pollution tendency; S, stability; L, low;
BA, below average; A, average; AA, above average; H, high.

Table 3. Objective data of cutting fluid selection criteria of example 1.

Cutting fluid WW TF GT SR R TH EP S

1 0.035 34.5 847 1.76 0.335 0.500 0.590 0.590

2 0.027 36.8 834 1.68 0.335 0.665 0.665 0.665
3 0.037 38.6 808 2.40 0.590 0.590 0.410 0.500
4 0.028 32.6 821 1.59 0.500 0.590 0.590 0.410

WW, wheel wear; TF, tangential force; GT, grinding temperature; SR, surface roughness;
R, recyclability; TH, toxic harm rate; EP, environment pollution tendency; S, stability.
4672 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Step II
(1) A decision table including the measures or values of all criteria for the short-listed
alternatives is prepared and it is nothing but Table 2. The objective data is given
in Table 3.
(2) The weights of relative importance of the criteria may be assigned using analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) method as explained in Section 2. Let the decision maker
prepare the following matrix:

WW TF GT SR R TH EP
S
2 3
WW 1 5 3 5 5 3 34
TF 6 1=5 1 1=3 1 2 1=2 1=2 2 7
6 7
6 7
GT 6 1=3 3 1 3 3 2 2 37
6 7
6 7
SR 6 1=5 1 1=3 1 2 1=2 1=2 2 7
6 7
R 6 1=5 1=2 1=3 1=2 1 1=3 1=3 1 7
6 7
6 7
TH 6 1=3 2 1=2 2 3 1 1 37
6 7
6 7
EP 4 1=3 2 1=2 2 3 1 1 35
S 1=5 1=2 1=3 1=2 1 1=3 1=3 1

WW is strongly more important than the TF in the grinding operation. Reducing WW

is strongly more important than reducing TF. Attention should be paid to reducing the
value of WW so as to reduce the machining cost. So, a relative importance value of 5 is
assigned to WW over TF (i.e. r12 ¼ 5), and a relative importance value of 1/5 is assigned to
TF over WW (i.e. r21 ¼ 1/5). WW is moderately more important than the GT. So, a
relative importance value of 3 is assigned to WW over GT (i.e. r13 ¼ 3), and a relative
importance value of 1/3 is assigned to GT over WW (i.e. r31 ¼ 1/3). Similarly, the relative
importance among other criteria can be explained. It may be added that these values are to
be arrived at judiciously after careful analysis. The assigned values in this chapter are for
demonstration purposes only.
The normalised weights of each criterion are calculated following the procedure
presented in Section 2 and these are WWW ¼ 0.3306, WTF ¼ 0.0718, WGT ¼ 0.1808,
WSR ¼ 0.0718, WR ¼ 0.0459, WTH ¼ 0.1260, WEP ¼ 0.1260, and WS ¼ 0.0472. The value
of max is 8.19 and CR ¼ 0.0194, which is much less than the allowed CR value of 0.1.
Thus, there is good consistency in the judgments made.
Step III: After calculating the weights of the criteria using AHP method, the next step
is to have the information on the decision maker preference function, which he/she uses
when comparing the contribution of the alternatives in terms of each separate criterion.
Let the decision maker use the preference ‘usual function’ for all criteria. If two
alternatives have a difference d 6¼ 0 in criterion ci, then a preference value ranging between
0 and 1 is assigned to the ‘better’ alternative cutting fluid whereas the ‘worse’ alternative
cutting fluid receives a value 0. If d ¼ 0, then they are indifferent which results in an
assignment of 0 to both alternatives. The pairwise comparison of criterion WW gives
the matrix given in Table 4. WW is a non-beneficial criterion and lower values are desired.
The cutting fluid having a comparatively low value of WW is said to be ‘better’ than the
other.
 International Journal of Production Research 4673

Table 4. Preference values P resulting from the pairwise comparisons of the four alternative cutting
fluids with respect to criterion WW.

Cutting fluid 1 Cutting fluid 2 Cutting fluid 3 Cutting fluid 4

Cutting fluid 1 – 0 1 0
Cutting fluid 2 1 – 1 1
Cutting fluid 3 0 0 – 0
Cutting fluid 4 1 0 1 –

WW, wheel wear.

Table 5. Resulting preference indices as well as leaving, entering and net flow values.

 Cf1 Cf2 Cf3 Cf4 ’þ(a) ’(a) ’(a) Rank

Cf1 0.0000 0.3238 0.6473 0.1732 1.1443 1.6838 0.5395 4

Cf2 0.6303 0.0000 0.5213 0.3778 1.5294 1.4247 0.1048 3
Cf3 0.3527 0.4787 0.0000 0.3999 1.2312 1.6428 0.4117 2
Cf4 0.7008 0.6222 0.4742 0.0000 1.7972 0.9508 0.8464 1

Cf, cutting fluid.

The leaving flow, entering flow and the net flow values for different alternatives are
calculated using Equations (6)–(8) and the resulting preference indices are given in Table 5.
Based on the net flow values given in Table 5, it is clear that the cutting fluid designated
as 4 is the best choice among the cutting fluids considered for the cylindrical grinding
operation under the given conditions. The ranking of cutting fluids is 4-2-3-1.
Instead of a preference ‘usual function’, if the decision maker uses a preference ‘linear
function’ for all the criteria in the above example, with the threshold values as indicated
in Table 6, then also the ranking of cutting fluids obtained is 4-2-3-1. The procedure
of using ‘linear function’ is explained in Table 6. Similarly, other preference functions
for all the criteria or different preference functions for different criteria can be tried.
However, these are not shown here for space reasons.

3.2 Example 2: Evaluation of environmentally conscious manufacturing programs

Environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM) is concerned with developing methods
for designing and manufacturing of new products from conceptual design to final delivery,
and ultimately to the end-of-life disposal such that all the environmental standards and
requirements are satisfied.
ECM program selection criterion may be defined as a factor that influences the ECM
program selection for producing a given product by an organisation. These criteria include
financial and non-financial measures of performance such as, the total cost involved,
product quality, energy consumption, toxic emissions, process waste, packaging waste,
transportation, recyclability, government regulations, vendor support, management
policies, community support, etc. For organisations to accept the results of evaluation
of ECM programs, any methodology to help evaluate these programs should be able
to handle traditional financial (e.g. total cost involved) and non-financial measures
of performance.
4674 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Table 6. Threshold values of criteria of example 1.

Criterion Preference threshold p Indifference threshold q

WW 0.0090 0.0010
TF 5.4000 0.6000
GT 35.0000 3.9000
SR 0.7290 0.0810
TH 0.1485 0.0165
EP 0.2295 0.0255
R 0.2295 0.0255
S 0.2295 0.0255

Calculating the threshold values ( p and q):

p ¼ (highest vale of criterion – lowest value of criterion)  0.9 ( p is
assumed to be 90% of the maximum difference in the values of
criterion).
q ¼ (highest vale of criterion – lowest value of criterion)  0.1 (q is
assumed to be 10% of the maximum difference in the values of
criterion)
d ¼ difference between the values of a criterion for two alternatives
a1 and a2.
If d 5 0, then Pa1a2 ¼ 0.
If q 5 d 5 p, then Pa1a2 ¼ (d – q)/( p – q).
WW, wheel wear; TF, tangential force; GT, grinding temperature;
SR, surface roughness; R, recyclability; TH, toxic harm rate; EP,
environment pollution tendency; S, stability.

Few methods for ECM program selection had been proposed in the past. The methods
were mainly based on DEA, ANP or AHP or VIKOR (Sarkis 1998, Sarkis 1999, Sarkis
and Weinrach 2001, Khan et al. 2002, Rao 2008, 2009, Kuo et al. 2006). Now to
demonstrate the application of the improved PROMETHEE method for evaluation of
ECM programs, the example problem presented by Sarkis (1999) is considered.
Sarkis (1999) had presented an illustrative problem for evaluating ECM programs
for an industrial application using a generalised version of AHP (called ANP) and data
envelopment analysis (DEA) method together. It was assumed that a set of alternative
ECM programs had been determined and that all could be evaluated on each of the
pertinent criteria identified for the given industrial application. Sarkis (1999) had given
the quantitative data of six criteria for 15 alternative ECM programs. Now the proposed
improved PROMETHEE method is applied to this problem as explained below:
Step I: The problem considering six criteria and 15 short-listed alternative ECM
programs is shown in Table 7. The six criteria used to evaluate the 15 short-listed
alternatives included cost, quality, recyclability, process waste reduction, packaging
waste reduction and regulatory compliance. The first two criteria selected, cost and
quality, are standard performance measures that may be used to evaluate any program
within an organisation. The remaining measures are those that focus primarily on the
environmental characteristics of operations and manufacturing. These environmentally
based criteria cover a spectrum from reactive environmental measures (e.g. regulatory
compliance) to proactive measures (e.g. process waste reduction). None of the 15 ECM
programs is best with respect to all six criteria.
 International Journal of Production Research 4675

Table 7. Quantitative data of ECM program selection criteria of example 2 (Sarkis 1999).

ECM programme C Q R PWR PGR RC

1 706967 2 29 17 0 51
2 181278 3 5 14 7 45
3 543399 4 5 3 7 71
4 932027 7 15 10 17 57
5 651411 4 19 7 0 21
6 714917 5 15 6 19 5
7 409744 1 8 17 1 35
8 310013 6 23 15 18 32
9 846595 2 28 16 19 24
10 625402 3 21 16 7 34
11 285869 2 1 13 12 54
12 730637 3 3 4 1 12
13 794656 5 27 14 14 65
14 528001 1 6 5 9 41
15 804090 2 26 6 5 70

C, costs ($); Q, quality (% defects); R, recyclability (% recyclable material); PWR, process waste
reduction (%); PGR, packaging waste reduction (%); RC, regulatory compliance (% reduction
in violations).

All six criteria considered in the example are quantitative in nature. Had there been
qualitative criteria (e.g. communities support, employees’ attitude, etc.) in the example
problem, then the same would have been assigned ranked value judgments on a fuzzy
conversion scale using Table 1.
Step II
(1) After short-listing the alternatives, a decision table including the measures or
values of all criteria for the short-listed alternatives is prepared and it is nothing
but Table 7.
(2) The weights of relative importance of the criteria may be assigned using analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) method as explained in Section 2. Sarkis (1999) had also
used a general version of AHP (known as ANP) method for assigning the relative
importance and hence the same values of relative importance are considered here
(for a later stage comparison of results).
2 3
Criteria C Q R PWR PGR RC
6 7
C 61 3 2 1 2 3 7
6 7
Q 6 1=3 1 1=3 1=4 1=3 1 7
6 7
6 7
R 6 1=2 3 1 1=2 1=2 2 7
6 7
6 7
PWR 6 1 4 2 1 2 4 7
6 7
PGR 6 4 1=2 3 2 1=2 1 2 75
RC 1=3 1 1=2 1=4 1=2 1

The normalised weight of each attribute is calculated following the procedure

presented in Section 2 and these are: wC ¼ 0.26, wQ ¼ 0.066, wR ¼ 0.14, wPWR ¼ 0.29,
4676 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Table 8. Leaving, entering and net flow values for different

alternatives of example 2.

ECM programme ’þ(a) ’(a) ’(a) Rank

1 8.4977 4.8443 3.6534 3

2 8.0953 5.0028 3.0925 5
3 4.8086 8.6430 3.8344 13
4 5.2773 8.5856 3.3083 12
5 4.7783 8.9831 4.2048 14
6 5.3688 7.9679 2.5991 10
7 8.9531 4.5207 4.4324 2
8 9.8225 4.1775 5.6450 1
9 8.2716 5.0704 3.2012 4
10 8.1238 5.1114 3.0124 6
11 8.3115 5.4908 2.8207 7
12 2.2861 11.4094 9.1233 15
13 7.4935 6.1530 1.3405 8
14 6.5027 7.4314 0.9287 9
15 5.1576 8.3571 3.1995 11

wPGR ¼ 0.17 and wRC ¼ 0.075. The value of max is 6.11 and CR ¼ 0.018 which is much less
than the allowed CR value of 0.1.
Step III: After calculating the weights of the criteria using AHP method, following the
‘usual function’ for all criteria, the leaving flow, entering flow and the net flow values
for different alternatives are calculated using Equations (6)–(8) and are given in Table 8.
From the ranking of ECM programs is it is clear that the ECM program 8 is the best
choice among the alternative ECM programs considered. Sarkis (1999) had suggested
ECM program 11 as the first choice and 8 as the second choice in his RCCR/AR model
of DEA. However, a close look at the values of the criteria of these ECM programs
reveal that ECM program 8 is better than ECM program 11 in the case of three criteria
(i.e. R, PWR, and PGR) and ECM program 11 is better than ECM program 8 in the case
of the other three criteria (i.e. C, Q and RC). However, as the weights of relative
importance of criteria assigned R, PWR and PGR are comparatively higher than that
assigned to C, Q and RC, proposing ECM program 8 as the first choice seems to be more
logical for the considered weights of relative importance of criteria. Sarkis (1999) had
proposed three DEA models (i.e. CCR, RCCR and RCCR/AR) to derive the rankings of
alternative ECM programs. In fact, the improved compromise ranking method ranks the
alternatives in a single model unlike the three-model approach proposed by Sarkis (1999).
Furthermore, DEA requires more computation and may be at a disadvantage in terms of
the method’s rationale if the decision maker is unfamiliar with linear programming
concepts. On the contrary, the improved PROMETHEE method is simple and easy to
apply as compared to the DEA method proposed by Sarkis (1999). Furthermore, the
DEA method proposed by Sarkis (1999) did not make any provision for consideration
of qualitative criteria. The improved PROMETHEE method overcomes the above
drawbacks.
Instead of a preference ‘usual function’, if the decision maker uses a preference ‘linear
function’ for all criteria in the above example, with the threshold values calculated as
 International Journal of Production Research 4677

explained in Table 6, then this preference function also suggests ECM programs 8 as the
first choice.

3.3 Example 3: Selection of best end-of-life scenario

The development of environmentally sound products requires new paradigms and new
approaches for the product development process. Responding to constantly more
demanding legislation, manufacturers have to develop product end-of-life (EOL) strategies.
The challenge today is to assess which ‘product EOL process’ would be profitable for an
enterprise given the business model in place. Integrating constraints from EOL strategies
into the early phases of design is one important aspect that needs to be improved.
Bufardi et al. (2003) presented an illustrative example of selecting the best product end-
of-life scenario using ELECTRE-III method. The product considered by the authors was
a telephone with various elements including components, functional components and
subassemblies (handset and its components, base and its components, main board, buzzer
speaker, buzzer case, keys, silicon contacts, screws and cables). Possible EOL options
associated with these elements were: functional reclamation (FNC), remanufacturing/reuse
(REM), recycling (REC), incineration with energy recovery (INC1), incineration without
energy recovery (INC2), and disposal to landfill (LND). Different elements had different
EOL options. The authors had defined five EOL scenarios by combining elements of the
telephone and EOL options. The first EOL scenario suggested that the whole product
should be disposed to landfill. However, due to legislation restrictions, that scenario was
not possible and, hence, was dropped. The second scenario suggested REC for certain
elements and LND for the remaining elements of the telephone. The third scenario
suggested INC1 for most of the elements and LND for a few elements of the telephone.
The fourth scenario suggested REC for most of the elements and INC1 for the remaining
elements of the telephone. The fifth scenario suggested REM, REC, LND and FNC for
different elements of the telephone.
The criteria considered for the evaluation of EOL scenarios were categorised into
economic, social and environmental categories. The criteria considered under economic
category were: logistics cost (LC), disassembly cost (DC), product value (PV) and product
cost (PC). The criteria considered under social category were: number of employees (NE)
and exposure to hazardous materials (EX). The criteria considered under environmental
category were: CO2 emissions (CE), SO2 emissions (SE) and energy consumption (EC).
Table 9 presents the EOL scenarios and the criteria data.
Now, to demonstrate and validate the improved PROMETHEE method, various steps
of the methodology proposed in Section 2 are carried out as described below:
Step I: In the present work, the criteria considered are the same as of Bufardi et al. (2003)
and these are: CE, SE, EC, LC, DC, PV, PC, NE, and EX. The alternatives are five
scenarios (but scenario 1 is dropped as explained above).
Step II: Bufardi et al. (2003) had considered PV and NE as the beneficial criteria and the
remaining as non beneficial criteria. Relative importance of criteria can also be assigned
the values as explained in Section 2. However, Bufardi et al. (2003) assigned equal weights
of importance to the criteria. To make a comparison of the results of application
of improved PROMETHEE methods with the results of ELECTRE-III method used by
Bufardi et al. (2003), in this paper also equal weights of importance are assigned to the
criteria, i.e. wCE ¼ wSE ¼ wEC ¼ wLC ¼ wDC ¼ wPV ¼ wPC ¼ wNE ¼ wEX ¼ 1/9 ¼ 0.1111.
4678 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Table 9. Data of the EOL scenarios on considered criteria of example 3 (Bufardi et al. 2003).

Criteria Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4 Scenario 5

CO2 emissions (kg) 0.12 0.15 0.13 0.10

SO2 emissions (kg) 0.23 0.45 0.32 0.22
Energy consumption (kWh) 0.65 0.96 0.87 0.98
Logistics cost (Euro) 0.34 0.25 0.28 0.30
Disassembly cost (Euro) 0.42 0.44 0.43 0.45
Product value (Euro) 0.21 0.12 0.16 0.26
Product cost (Euro) 0.25 0.19 0.23 0.22
No. of employees to perform the scenario 3 2 3 4
Exposure to hazardous materials 3 2 3 3
(scale 1–5: 1 for very high, 5 for very low)

Table 10. Leaving, entering and net flow values for different
alternatives of example 3.

EOL scenario ’þ(a) ’(a) ’(a) Rank

S2 1.4444 1.2222 0.2222 2

S3 1.2222 1.7778 0.5556 4
S4 1.2222 1.4444 0.2222 3
S5 1.6667 1.1111 0.5556 1

Step III: Following the preference ‘usual function’ for all the criteria, the leaving flow,
entering flow and the net flow values for different alternatives are calculated using
Equations (6)–(8) and are given in Table 10.
From Table 10, scenario 5 is understood as the best choice among the considered EOL
scenario alternatives for the given product. The ranking of EOL scenarios as per the
proposed methodology is scenario 5–scenario 2–scenario 4–scenario 3; while the ranking
presented by Bufardi et al. (2003) was scenario 5/scenario 2–scenario 3–scenario 4. Bufardi
et al. (2003) suggested that both the scenarios 5 and 2 were equally best. However, a close
look at the corresponding values of the criteria of scenarios 5 and 2 clearly indicate the
supremacy of scenario 5 over scenario 2 for equal weights of relative importance of the
criteria. Similarly, proposing scenario 4 as the last choice by Bufardi et al. (2003) is not
genuine. A close look at the corresponding values of the criteria of scenarios 4 and 3
clearly indicate the supremacy of scenario 4 over scenario 3 for equal weights of relative
importance of the criteria. Thus, the results obtained by using digraph and matrix methods
seem to be more logical and genuine as compared to the results presented by Bufardi et al.
(2003) using ELECTRE-III method. Furthermore, the PROMETHEE method requires
less computation as compared to ELECTRE-III method used by Bufardi et al. (2003).

3.4 Example 4: Rapid prototyping process selection

Due partly to the rapid growth of RP technology, the selection of the most appropriate RP
process to meet users’ requirements from among a number of RP systems has become
increasingly important. However, it is difficult for users with RP experience as well as
 International Journal of Production Research 4679

Table 11. Data of the RP system selection criteria of example 4 (Byun and Lee 2004).

RP system A B S E C B

SLA3500 120 6.5 6.5 5.0 VH (0.745) M (0.500)

SLS2500 150 12.5 40.0 8.5 VH (0.745) M (0.500)
FDM8000 125 21.0 30.0 10.0 H (0.665) VH (0.745)
LOM1015 185 20.0 25.0 10.0 SH (0.590) SL (0.410)
Quadra 95 3.5 30.0 6.0 VH (0.745) SL (0.410)
Z402 600 15.5 5.0 1.0 VVL (0.135) VL (0.255)

A, accuracy; R, surface roughness; S, tensile strength; E, elongation; C, cost of the part; B, build
time. VVL, very very low; VL, very low; SL, slightly low; M, medium; SH, slightly high; H, high;
VH, very high.

those who employ a service bureau, to select a suitable system because there are so many
RP systems worldwide, and the best selection depends on many criteria. Furthermore,
each system has its own strengths, defects, applications, utilities, and limitations. Selection
of an appropriate process requires a sound understanding of the interactions between the
part quality, part properties, cost, build envelope, build time (speed), and other concerns.
Byun and Lee (2004) developed a decision support system for the selection of a rapid
prototyping process using the modified TOPSIS method. On the basis of the data obtained
by the questionnaires from different user groups such as the service bureau, governmental
institutes and industry users, the authors conducted a case study of a designed test part
comparing six RP systems. Six criteria, accuracy (A), surface roughness (R), tensile
strength (S), elongation (E), cost of the part (C) and build time (B), were identified as
evaluation criteria for the selection of the RP system. The build time included the pre-
processing time, building time and post-processing time. The part cost included both the
material and the labour costs. Criteria C and B were expressed in linguistic terms. The
quantitative and qualitative data of the criteria are given in Table 11.
For the given rapid prototyping process selection problem, S and E are considered as
beneficial criteria and A, R, C and B are considered non beneficial criteria. Criteria C and
B are expressed qualitatively, and hence equivalent ranked value judgements on fuzzy
conversion scale, as shown in Table 1, are made and given in parentheses in Table 11.
Following the steps of improved PROMETHEE method, let the decision maker
prepare the following matrix:
A R S E C B
2 3
A 1 1 3 3 5 5
R6 61 1 3 3 5 577
6 7
A66 ¼ S 6
6
1=3 1=3 1 1 3 37
7
6
E 6 1=3 1=3 1 1 3 377
6 7
C 4 1=5 1=5 1=3 1=3 1 1 5
B 1=5 1=5 1=3 1=3 1 1
The normalised weights of each attribute are calculated, and these are, WA ¼ 0.3185,
WR ¼ 0.3185, WS ¼ 0.1291, WE ¼ 0.1291, WC ¼ 0.0524, and WB ¼ 0.0524. The value of
max is 6.077 and CR ¼ 0.0124, which is much less than the allowed CR value of 0.1.
4680 R.V. Rao and B.K. Patel

Table 12. Leaving, entering and net flow values for different alternatives
of example 4.

RP system ’+(a) ’(a) ’(a) Rank

SLA3500 3.3750 1.4678 1.9072 2

SLS2500 2.5486 2.2942 0.2544 3
FDM8000 1.8873 2.8545 0.9672 4
LOM1015 1.6493 3.1692 1.5199 5
Quadra 3.8586 0.8551 3.0035 1
Z402 1.1610 3.8390 2.6780 6

Following the ‘usual function’, the leaving flow, entering flow and the net flow values
for different RP systems are calculated and are given in Table 12. The RP systems are
arranged in the descending order of net flow values as, Quadra–SLA3500–SLS2500–
FDM8000–LOM1015–Z402. These results match well with the results presented by Byun
and Lee (2004) using TOPSIS method. In their work also, Byun and Lee (2004) proposed
Quadra as the first choice, SLA3500 as the second choice, and Z402 as the last choice.
However, the fuzzy calculations made by Byun and Lee (2004) are not necessary, and also
require more computation. Moreover, the relative importance matrix prepared by Byun
and Lee (2004) shows inconsistency in judgments, with the calculated value of CR almost
equaling the maximum allowed value of 0.1. Thus, the results presented by using improved
PROMETHEE method are more logical.
The four examples presented above have demonstrated and validated the improved
PROMETHEE method as a potential decision making method for dealing with the
selection problems of manufacturing industries.

4. Conclusions
A methodology based on an improved PROMETHEE method is suggested for decision
making in the manufacturing environment which helps in selection of a suitable alternative
from among a large number of available alternatives for a given problem. Four example
problems are included to illustrate the method. The proposed method considers the
values of the criteria and their relative importance together, and hence it provides a better
accurate evaluation of the alternatives. The method allows the decision maker to system-
atically assign the values of relative importance to the criteria based on his/her preferences.
The method represents the qualitative attribute on a conversion scale using fuzzy logic and
helps the users in assigning the values. The ‘net flow’ values presented by the method
evaluate and rank the alternatives and lead to selection of a suitable alternative.
The improved PROMETHEE method is a general method and can consider any
number of quantitative and qualitative selection criteria simultaneously and offers a more
objective and logical selection approach. The suggested methodology can be used for any
type of selection problem involving any number of selection criteria.

Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR), New Delhi, India to carry out this work.
 International Journal of Production Research 4681

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