A multifactor decision-making method for process route planning

Existing decision-making methods for process route planning normally only consider the precedence constraints and processing costs, but meanwhile, the process planning experience and the impacts of the obtained machining process route on the production line are neglected. As a result, the suitability of the final process route is poor, which result in that the generated process route is often needed to be modified. In order to promote the effectiveness of the generated process route, a multifactor decision-making method for process route planning is proposed. The proposed method establishes the precedence constraint matrix and develops a generating model of potential process routes by applying matrix iteration multiplication. Furthermore, three evaluation indexes, including the planning experiential index, the manufacturing stability index, and the cost index, are built to estimate the rationality of potential process routes. Then considering the three evaluation indexes in the process design of machine parts, a multifactor decision model based on set pair analysis is discussed to select the final process route from the potential process routes. Finally, two cases about process route planning are presented to validate the proposed method. It is expected that the proposed method can provide the support for process route planning in manufacturing fields.