A Comparative Study on Suitability of AHP and TOPSIS for Identifying optimal Conceptual Design of Bearing Puller

Abstract

Design process of the bearing puller involves various stages that can be grouped into conceptualization of ideas based on design criteria and functional requirements. This is followed by concept generation and selection for optimal design. Concept selection is an important activity in engineering design process, because it involves decision making considering various factors. In this project, computer aided design of four bearing puller was developed after a thorough consideration of the design criteria and factors of an optimal design. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) were used in order to ascertain their suitability for selecting optimal design in engineering. The result obtained from the comparison process proves that both processes are suitable because there are no ties in the final selection of the optimal design concept. The AHP and TOPSIS shows the same design concept irrespective of the processes. This is an indication that both concept selection process considered the weight factor of the level of importance of functional requirement or design criteria. In view of this, it has been proven that whenever the weigh factor remains the same, both processes will give the same result, at least for the considered case. This result may vary when they are both applied for design process of other products.