A decision support system for selection and justification of advanced manufacturing technologies

Investing large sums of money on advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) involves critical decisions and requires appropriate justification. Researchers have adopted numerous approaches to justify AMT. Selection of AMT involves decisions which are critical to the growth and profitability of the company. Nevertheless, selection and justification processes for AMT are unstructured problems and must analyse large numbers of economic, analytical, and risk factors in a decision support environment. In this paper, a decision support system (DSS) is developed using economic, multi-attribute, and risk evaluation analysis approaches for selection and justification of automation technologies. The salient features of the system are demonstrated by a case situation.