Multi-criteria decision support system for smart and sustainable machining process

Sustainatableble development assumes the meeting of humanity’s everyday needs and development goals while sustaining the ability of nature to provide the resources and ecosystem on which the economy and society depend. It means that an increase of economic benefit cannot be a single optimization problem anymore, instead, the multi-criteria approach is used with the accent on ecology and social welfare. However, it is not easy to harmonize these aims with machining, which is a well known industrial pollutant. On the other hand, new industrial paradigms such as Industry 4.0/5.0, are driving toward the smart concept that collects data from the manufacturing process and optimizes it in accordance with productivity and/or ecologic aims. In this research, the smart concept is used through the development of the multi-criteria decision support system for the selection of the optimal machining process in terms of sustainability. In the case of milling process selection, it has been demonstrated that green machining, without a multi-criteria approach, will always remain an interesting research option, but not a replacement for conventional machining. However, when applying realistic ecological and social criteria, green machining becomes a first choice imperative. The multi-criteria decision-making PROMETHEE method is used for the comparison and ranking, and validation of results is made through criteria weights sensitivity analysis. The contribution of this concept is that it could also be applied to other manufacturing processes.