Selecting Doffing Tube Components for Rotor-Spun Yarn for Weft Knitted Fabrics Using Multi-criteria Decision-making Approach with Interval Data

Selecting appropriate spinning conditions according to the properties of the final yarn is an intricate aspect and is inherently a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. In recent years, various MCDM approaches have been used for solving such kind of the problems with exact value of the attributes. But, values of the properties for a yarn are affected by some factors such as specimen length, number of tests and experimental conditions. Therefore, decision-makers use average values instead of exact values for calculation. Considering existing difficulties in determining precisely the exact values of the attributes, their values can be considered as intervals. Therefore, in the present study, appropriate components of the doffing tube and its adjustment for rotor spun yarn intended to be used for weft knitted fabric were selected by extended version of the TOPSIS. Three important variables were considered and their performances were evaluated based on the seven quality parameters of the sixteen produced yarns. The final ranking was elicited in accordance with the relative closeness coefficient to the ideal solution and the best alternative which is able to increase weft knitting machine efficiency was presented. Consequently, stability of the proposed final ranking was verified after sensitivity analysis.