Application of Rough TOPSIS Technique for the Analysis of Engineering System Failure Causes

Abstract

The prioritization of the causes of engineering system failure posed to be a challenge. Therefore, there is a need to develop a tool that will be used to identify critical problems of an engineering system to facilitate decision making in allocation of available resources in ensuring optimal system performance. In this paper, a rough technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (Rough-TOPSIS) is proposed, which combines rough set theory and TOPSIS for the prioritization exercise in uncertain engineering environment. The technique is exemplified with a numerical example and advanced using information from experts. From the result of the analysis, factors/causes hampering the optimal performance of the engineering system have been revealed in order of importance. The proposed approach have comparative advantages over other hybrid methods as it can easily be implemented with hand calculation/spreadsheet, without requiring additional tools to evaluate decision criteria weights and aggregate experts opinions.

Keywords

• rough set theory
• Rough TOPSIS
• engineering system
• failure causes
• decision criteria