Fuzzy modelling and Analytic Hierarchy Processing as a means to quantify risk levels associated with failure modes in production systems

The analysis of production system reliability and level of risk often requires the use of subjective judgements and/or uncertain data. This paper presents a decision-making support system for failure mode and effect and criticality analysis. To help the maintenance staff to formulate effective criticality assessments of the possible modes of failure, the fuzzy logic technique is adopted. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used for obtaining the rules for the fuzzy model. Another characteristic of the model is the use of a triangular approach as crisp inputs in fuzzy models to evaluate the different opinions of the maintenance staff. To test the proposed methodology, an application is described at an Italian refrigerator manufacturing company.