An interactive multiple criteria approach for parameter selection in metal cutting

Many real-world problems, particularly in manufacturing planning, can be expressed as multiple criteria problems. In this paper, the authors formulate a metal cutting operation, the turning operation, as a discrete multiple objective problem. The objectives are to minimize cost per part, production time per part, and roughness of the work surface, simultaneously. The authors discuss a heuristic, gradient-based multiple criteria decision making approach that they apply to parameter selection in metal cutting. The approach can be applied to any multicriteria problems with either discrete integer, or continuous sets of alternatives. The approach is interactive and requires only paired comparisons of alternatives. For the metal cutting problem, the authors show how efficient alternatives can be generated by a discrete variable approach and how the gradient-based multiple objective approach can be implemented to obtain the most preferred alternative. They also discuss the software package for microcomputers as a decision support system for parameter selection. The newly developed Computer Aided Machine Parameter Selection (CAMPS) package is then compared to some of the recent commercial packages on the market. Some computational experiments are reported and some examples are discussed.