A VISUAL INTERACTIVE MULTICRITERIA DECISION-ANALYSIS MODEL FOR FMS DESIGN

The main Real of this work is to develop a multicriteria decision mode l alined at the evaluation of FMS competing design alternatives. The m odel was developed to support the design team in exploring the strengt hs and weaknesses of each alternative, to assist the setting of priori ties between conflicting manufacturing strategy components (such as fl exibility and quality), to study the sensitivity of the behaviour of a lternatives to changes in underlying decision situations, and finally to identify a preferred course of action. In summary the model can be considered as a mechanism for taking into account designer's preferenc es and wishes, in order to customise the manufacturing system for the user's particular situation. To be effective, the computational implem entation of the multicriteria FMS design model provides extensive grap hical and interactive facilities both to model structuring and evaluat ion. Moreover; the model provides animation facilities for visual inte ractive sensitivity analysis. A case study illustrates the effectivene ss of the decision model.