Selection of 3D printer based on FAHP integrated with GRA-TOPSIS

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and select the suitable three-dimensional (3D) printers for centre of excellence of academic institution. The selection involves various conflicting criteria such as build volume, speed, layer thickness, extruder, machine cost and support material cost. In order to overcome this conflicting nature of the evaluation criteria, hybrid multi criteria decision making (MCDM) model is proposed. Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) is integrated with grey relational analysis (GRA) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is proposed as a model to evaluate the suitable 3D printer. FAHP is used to define the weights of criteria and GRA-TOPSIS is used to attain the final ranking of 3D printers. In this study, ten 3D printer models and six evaluation criteria are considered for the evaluation process.