Critical components identification using analytic hierarchy process - a case study towards product design improvement

Abstract

Failure of product during its operation may result unsatisfied customer. In order to maintain the high value of product, proper action such as maintainability measure and reliability is one of crucial part during product design improvement phase. In this phase, the identification of critical component that should be prioritized for product design improvement must be clearly identified. However, in current practices of product design improvement, the attention on identifying critical component has been neglected. Therefore, to make this improvement process more effective and efficient, a decision model of critical component identification is proposed. The main objective of this proposed model is to identify the critical components towards product design improvement. The methodology of this study starts with the application of Component Classification Analysis (CCA) where the main components and support components is identified. Next, the result from the CCA is used as the input for Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In this step, the input is compared by using pairwise comparison based on the criteria that has been chosen which are clogged, breakdown and loose. A case study of two different types of staple guns is used to validate the developed decision model. Results from this research shows that there are five critical components which are compress spring, body, outlet spring, hammer and rivet in the staple gun should be prioritized for product design improvement. By having this information, it will help the design team to focus on that particular component during product design improvement.