A modified failure modes and effects analysis using interval-valued spherical fuzzy extension of TOPSIS method: case study in a marble manufacturing facility

Abstract

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a commonly used step-by-step approach to assess potential failures existing in a product or process design. In this paper, a modified FMEA model based on an interval-valued spherical fuzzy extension of technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (IVSF-TOPSIS) is proposed to cope with drawbacks of the traditional risk priority number (RPN) computation. Spherical fuzzy sets are the integration of Pythagorean fuzzy sets and neutrosophic sets. They provide more freedom to experts in decision making by including the degree of membership, non-membership, and hesitation of fuzzy sets. Therefore, initially, TOPSIS is merged with a special branch of spherical sets "interval-valued spherical fuzzy sets" to determine priorities of emerged failures. As a novelty to traditional RPN of FMEA, three parameters called cost, prevention, and effectiveness in addition to the existed parameters of severity, occurrence and detection are attached to the proposed approach. Weights of these parameters are determined via an interval-valued spherical weighted arithmetic mean operator (IVSWAM). As a demonstration, a case study in a marble manufacturing facility is provided to show the applicability of the novel model. Results show that the most crucial failure modes concern with the maintenance and repairing works of the factory and the lack of technical periodic checks of lifting vehicles regarding "block area: crane" failures. Some comparative and validation studies are also performed to test the solidity of the approach.