FAQT-2: A customer-oriented method for MCDM with statistical verification applied to industrial robot selection

This study is a double subject that links Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) to the problem of robot selection. The study is contained in three folds. The first fold addresses this problem for industry in general, as well as the pharmaceutical industry as a specific field for application. The second fold introduces a new customer-oriented method, termed FAQT-2, for group-MCDM by improving and extending an existing method termed FAQT. Three new stages are integrated. A preliminary stage is assigned to manage the information flow to/from the consultation team. An intermediate stage is assigned to construct the final decision matrix. A post-analysis stage is assigned to verify, report, and revise the obtained solution. This represents the main novelty of the study. Thus, the decision maker can obtain a feedback report on the rationality of the final weights, trade-offs between the alternatives, and the individual effect of alternatives and customer's requirements on the solution. This supports reinstalling the inputs if any inappropriateness arises. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses are considered to study the effect of changes in customer's expectations. The developed method is framed in a C# code software for use in research and industry. The third fold implements a case study and discusses the results, which approved the capability of FAQT-2 to improve the selection decisions.