Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829

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Advances in Engineering Software

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/advengsoft

Computer-aided maintenance management systems selection based on a fuzzy AHP

approach
Orlando Durán
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Av. Los Carrera 01567, Quilpue, Chile

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) are common in today’s industries. CMMS can
Received 5 August 2008 bring a large number of benefits, which include increased productivity, reduced costs, and effective uti-
Received in revised form 7 January 2010 lization of the assets in any manufacturing and service producer. The list of CMMS that are available in
Accepted 13 May 2011
the market has grown very rapidly during the last years. When purchasing a system, one that suits the
Available online 12 June 2011
specific needs and objectives of the company’s maintenance operations should be preferred. Several
selection methods were proposed in literature. Up to now, no article has considered ambiguity and
Keywords:
uncertainty factors when selecting effective CMMS. In addition, CMMS selection decisions involve the
Computerized maintenance management
software
simultaneous consideration of multiple criteria, including tangible and intangible factors; prioritizing
Analytic hierarchy process these factors can be a great challenge and a complex task. Therefore, no attempt has been made to incor-
Fuzzy-AHP porate fuzziness into multicriteria decision-making in the area of CMMS selection. This work proposes a
Software selection fuzzy–based methodology for comparative evaluation of a number of CMMS alternatives. The proposal is
Triangular fuzzy numbers based on the well-known multicriteria decision method called Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with
Comparison of fuzzy numbers triangular numbers. An example is given to illustrate the proposed methodology. Finally, a software pro-
totype for implementing this method was implemented. To illustrate and validate the proposed approach
and the software prototype developed some details are presented and discussed.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Selection and evaluation of a CMMS is a very difficult and com-

The increase in automation and the reduction in inventories in
industries have clearly put more pressure on the maintenance sys-
tems. Any disruption to production flows becomes costly and crit-
ical. This makes the maintenance function relevant to operations
management to keep organizations productive and profitable
along time. Therefore, computerized maintenance management
systems (CMMS) are becoming increasingly important in the last
few years. Using CMMS is a highly relevant issue in a production
environment where the number of critical equipment is high or
where the need for maintenance resources management is signifi-
cant. A large variety of computer software is available on the mar-
ket for maintenance management. It is not surprising that many
companies have been disappointed with the results of their imple-
mented CMMS. An extensive survey [1] reported that there is a
paradox in CMMS selection and implementations. According to this
survey, 62% of the respondents changed their maintenance work
process to fit the CMMS characteristics and 66% customized the
CMMS to fit the work process. These numbers reflect that the selec-
tion of the most suitable CMMS is a crucial task to eliminate all
these problems and difficulties.
E-mail address: orlando.duran@ucv.cl
plex task. The following five factors can be identified as the main
causes of this complexity:
(1) The tremendous number of software products available in
the market.
(2) The continual advancements and improvements in informa-
tion technology (IT).
(3) The existence of incompatibilities between various hard-
ware and software systems.
(4) The functional dissimilarities are difficult to evaluate among
software packages.
(5) The users lack the technical knowledge and experience for
software selection decision making.
As it was previously commented, decision making in the field of
maintenance management software selection has become more
complex due to a large number of software products in the market,
ongoing improvements in information technology, and multiple
and sometimes conflicting objectives. Some methodologies and
frameworks for CMMS selection and evaluation have been devel-
oped. Raouf et al. [2] presented an instrument to select suitable
system using a comparative strategy and the concept of relative
importance among a set of required functions in accordance to

0965-9978/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.advengsoft.2011.05.023
822 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829
the intended use of the CMMS. More recently, Carnero and Noves
[3] presented an evaluation system for the selection of computer-
ized maintenance management software in industrial plants using
multicriteria methods. Braglia et al. [4] proposed a methodology to
perform a selection of the best suited CMMS within process indus-
tries. To improve the effectiveness of the methodology proposed by
Braglia et al. [4], they combined AHP with a sensitivity analysis.
Those evaluation systems use the AHP method in its basic version
(crisp numbers). Up to now, no article has considered ambiguity
and uncertainty factors when selecting effective CMMS. In addi-
tion, software selection decisions involve the simultaneous consid-
eration of multiple criteria, including tangible and intangible
factors; prioritizing these factors can be a great challenge and a
complex task. Labib [5] published an investigation of the character-
istics of CMMS, identified their deficiencies. In addition, Labib pro-
posed a model to aid the decision analysis capability in CMMS
under selection [5].
These factors arise as the main motivation of this research work,
which is aimed at how to select an appropriate CMMS facing the
strategic and operational requirements of the organization using
a multicriteria decision method incorporating concepts of uncer-
tainty and uncompleted information.
In other words, this study proposes a comprehensive CMMS
selection framework in which the objective hierarchy is con-
structed and the appropriate attributes are specified using fuzzy
numbers to provide guidance for CMSS evaluation. The analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) method [6] and fuzzy numbers are applied
for dealing with the ambiguities involved in the assessment of
CMMS alternatives and relative importance weightings of
attributes.
2. Multicriteria decision model
The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) developed by Saaty [6] is a
decision-making tool that can handle unstructured or semi struc-
tured decisions with multiperson and multicriteria inputs. It is a
decision-rule model that relaxes the measurement of related fac-
tors to subjective managerial inputs on multiple criteria. AHP has
several advantages, including its acceptance of inconsistencies in
managerial judgments/perceptions and its user friendliness be-
cause users may directly input judgment data directly without
the requirement of mathematical knowledge. It also allows users
to structure complex problems in the form of a hierarchy or a set
of integrated levels. One of the main advantages of this method
is the relative ease with which it handles multiple criteria. In addi-
tion to this, AHP is easier to understand and it can effectively han-
dle both qualitative and quantitative data. The use of AHP does not
involve cumbersome mathematics. AHP involves the principles of
decomposition, pair wise comparisons, and priority vector genera-
tion and synthesis. The power of AHP has been validated by empir-
ical application in diverse areas such as healthcare [7], planning
[8], mining [9], project management [10], missile systems [11],
new product development [12] and manufacturing [13]. In addi-
tion AHP has been used in making decisions that involve ranking,
selection, evaluation, and selection of machines and IT based sys-
tems [14–16].
To construct the hierarchy of objectives and attributes of a
generic CMMS an extended review of the related literature was
conducted. This review focused on CMMS selection and, on gen-
eral-purpose software selection problem. Two works arise as the
most significant ones to the goal pursuit by our approach.
Cato and Mobley [17] listed some activities which constitute
subsystems or modules of a generic CMMS: equipment/asset re-
cords creation and maintenance, asset bills of materials creation
and maintenance, asset and work order history, inventory control,
work order creation and control, preventive maintenance planning
and scheduling, human resources, purchasing and receiving, in-
voices matching, and, reporting.
Considering Carnero and Novés’ [3] opinion the key functions
for any CMMS are:
 Easy work management.
 Planning function.
 Scheduling function.
 Budget/cost function.
 Spares management.
 Key performance indicators.
More recently, Bradshaw [18] listed the basic capabilities of a
CMMS. They are: assets database, maintenance activities records,
corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and maintenance
work scheduling and control. Besides, the same author incorpo-
rates what he called improved CMMS capabilities; they are inte-
gration and interfacing capabilities and, communication, data
collection and transfer.
Wei et al. [19] distinguish two categories of attributes to select
an enterprise resource planning system, including system factors
and vendor factors. Among the subcriteria related to the system
factor they suggest the total cost, implementation time, functional-
ity, user friendliness, flexibility and reliability. On the other hand,
the subcriteria related to the vendor factor they used vendor repu-
tation, technical capability and supplying ongoing service.
These characteristics lead the authors to propose the hierarchy
used in the evaluation approach. Table 1 presents the detailed
description of the used attributes in the fuzzy AHP model.
Since all organizations are different, it is very important to per-
form a previous identification of maintenance management (MM)
IT requirements. Kans [20] presents a formal method for the iden-
tification of MM IT requirements. Accordingly Kans’ work, the
choice of technical features of MMIT is dependent upon the needs
and characteristics of the specific organization.
Once the IT requirements identification is completed, a series of
candidate software systems will arise as a result of the require-
ments identification phase. Those candidates software systems will
have to be classified or ranked using a MCDM with the participa-
tion of domain (maintenance management) experts. For that objec-
tive, a fuzzy AHP approach was developed and applied to the
problem of CMMS selection. The next section discusses the fuz-
zy-AHP methodology.
3. Fuzzy AHP methodology
The fuzzy AHP methodology extends Saaty’s AHP by combining
with fuzzy set theory. In the fuzzy AHP, fuzzy ratio scales are used
to indicate the relative strength of the factors in the corresponding
criteria. Therefore, a fuzzy judgment matrix can be constructed.
The final scores of alternatives are also represented by fuzzy num-
bers. The optimum alternative is obtained by ranking the fuzzy
numbers using special algebra operators.
The next three steps can summarize the procedure of applying
fuzzy AHP:
i. Construction of a hierarchical structure for the problem to be
solved.
ii. Establish the fuzzy judgment matrix and a fuzzy weight
vector.
iii. Rank all alternatives and select the optimal one.
Three levels compose the hierarchy of the evaluation system.
The suggested hierarchy is depicted in Fig. 1. The first level is the
 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829 823

Table 1 numbers to indicate the relative contribution or impact of each

Attribute details. alternative on a criterion, a fuzzy judgment vector is then obtained
Factor Attributes Sub attributes for each criterion. The fuzzy judgment matrix A is built with all the
Functionality  Module completion fuzzy judgment vectors. The weight vector W is used to represent
 Function fitness the decision maker’s opinion of the relative importance of each cri-
 Maintenability terion during the decision process.
System Flexibility  Upgrade ability Though the purpose of AHP is to capture the expert’s knowl-
 Ease of integration
 Ease in-house customization
edge, the conventional AHP still cannot reflect the human thinking
Friendliness  Ease operation style. In spite of its popularity, this method is often criticized be-
 Ease learning cause of a series of pitfalls associated with the AHP technique. They
 Low customization can be summarized as follows:
Implementation  Implementation time
Difficulties  Implementation costs
Reputation and Stability  Scale of vendor  Its inability to adequately handle the inherent uncertainty and
 Financial condition imprecision associated with the mapping of the decision-
 Market share (and internationali- maker’s perception to exact numbers [8].
zation)  In the traditional formulation of the AHP, human’s judgments
Vendor Good technical capability  R&D capability
are represented as exact (or crisp, according to the fuzzy logic
 On line support
 Experience in the industry terminology) numbers. However, in many practical cases the
Service  Warranties human preference model is uncertain and decision-makers
 Consultant services might be reluctant or unable to assign exact numerical values
 Training service
to the comparison judgments.
 Proximity
 Although the use of the discrete scale of 1–9 has the advantage
of simplicity, the AHP does not take into account the uncer-
tainty associated with the mapping of one’s judgment to a
goal of the problem, that is, select the most suitable computer number.
based maintenance management system. The two main decision
criteria are placed in the second level. They are system and vendors In order to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings, a fuzzy
factors. In the third level are the most relevant sub-criteria for each extension of AHP, was developed to solve the hierarchical fuzzy
one of the criteria listed in level 2. problems. In the next sections a fuzzy AHP technique is proposed,
In this methodology, triangular fuzzy numbers represents all and an example for the evaluation and justification of advanced
elements in the judgment matrix and weight vectors. Using fuzzy manufacturing system is presented.

Functionality

Flexibility

System
Factors

Friendliness
CMMS 1

CMMS 2

Selection of the most Implementation

suitable CMMS CMMS 3
Reputation

CMMS n
Technic. Cap.

Vendor
Factors

Service

Fig. 1. Hierarchy of the CMMS selection problem.

824 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829

A fuzzy number ~ x expresses the meaning ‘about x0 . Each mem- subjective pairwise comparisons or capture certain degree of vague-
bership function is defined by three parameters of the symmetric ness (Table 2).
triangular fuzzy number, (l, m, r), the left point, middle point and We know that matrix A is a real and positive matrix. As well as,
right point of the range over which the function is defined. Fuzzy since aij = 1/aji, if i is not equal to j, A is a reciprocal matrix.
membership function and the definition of a fuzzy number are Next, the eigenvector, eigenvalue and the IC index are calcu-
shown in Fig. 2. lated, now taking these parameters as fuzzy numbers.
8 To estimate the fuzzy eigenvector from A matrix the next equa-
> 1 x¼m
>
> tion is used:
< xl l6x6m
ml
lðxÞ ¼ ð1Þ !1=n
>
>
nx
m6x6n Y
n
>
: nm Vi ¼ ~ij
a ð6Þ
0 otherwise j¼1

When the decision-maker faces a complex and uncertain prob-

Therefore, we have
lem and expresses his/her comparison judgments as uncertain ra-
tios, such as ‘about two times more important’, ‘between two and ~11  a
V 1 ¼ ða ~1n Þ1=n
~12  a13      a ð7Þ
four times less important’, etc. the standard AHP steps, and spe-
cially, eigenvalue prioritization approach, cannot be considered
~n1  a
V n ¼ ða ~n2  a ~nn Þ1=n
~n3      a ð8Þ
as straightforward procedures. Indeed, the assessment of local pri-
orities, based on pair wise comparisons needs some prioritization
Eigenvector V is compound by the n triangular numbers defined as:
method to be applied. Next a brief description about addition, mul-
tiplication and division of triangular numbers is given. The fuzzy V ¼ ðV1; V2; . . . VnÞ
operators were adapted from [21] and are based on the extent
analysis with the use of triangular fuzzy numbers for pairwise where Vi is a triangular number defined as (Vl, Vm, Vu)
comparison scale [22]. As the traditional AHP methodology, eigenvector is to be nor-
Let A and B be two triangular fuzzy numbers, with their param- malized according the next relation:
eters as follows: T ¼ ðw1=Rwi w2=Rwi w3=Rwi ... wn=RwiÞ ð9Þ
e ¼ ða1; a2; a3Þ
A That is, by dividing each element of the preference matrix with
the sum of its respective column each element of the normalized
e ¼ ðb1; b2; b3Þ
B eigenvector can be obtained.
Where T is the normalized eigenvector. From this normalized
Then, fuzzy numbers multiplication is defined by:
eigenvector the priorities or importance of the attributes under
eB
A e ¼ ða1  b1; a2  b2; a3  b3Þ ð2Þ analysis is extracted.
In order to control the result of the method, the consistency ra-
At the other hand, fuzzy numbers division is defined as follows: tio need to be calculated. The deviations from consistency are ex-
e Be ¼ ða1=b3; a2=b2; a3=b1Þ pressed by the following equation:
A= ð3Þ
kmax  n
whilst the reciprocal value of a triangular fuzzy number (a, b, c) is CI ¼ ð10Þ
given by (1/a, 1/b, 1/c). The power of a triangular fuzzy number is
n1
given by The consistency ratio (CR) is used to estimate directly the con-
sistency of pairwise comparisons. The CR is computed by dividing
e n ¼ ða1; a2; a3Þn ¼ ða1n ; b2n ; c3n Þ
A ð4Þ the CI by a value obtained from the table of Random Consistency
As can be seen in Fig. 3, the relative importance of a number Index (RI) created by Saaty
over other fuzzy number is gradual and not abrupt. CR ¼ CI=RI ð11Þ
~ i be a set of decision maker’s opinion of the relative impor-
Let w
tance of the one alternative over other one. The meaning of each If the CR is less than 10%, the comparisons are acceptable, other-
fuzzy number is defined in Table 2. wise not. RI represents the average index for randomly generated
Using this scale we have the comparison matrix A, e where aij ele- weights.
ments represent the estimative of the wi/wj relation. Since kmax is a triangular number, it has to be defuzzified into a
crisp number to compute the CI. We suggest here using the central
~ w1
w1= ~ w2=
~ w1
~ . . . wn= ~
~ w1 value of kmax, because of the symmetry of the triangular number,
e ¼ w1=
A ~ w2
~ w2=
~ w2
~ . . . wn= ~
~ w2 ð5Þ the central value corresponds to the centroid of the triangular area.
~ ~
~ w2=wn
~ . . . wn=
~ wn
~ As an alternative, Leung and Cao [23] propose a fuzzy consistency
w1=wn
definition with consideration of a tolerance deviation. Essentially,
Experts’ judgments or preferences among the options using Saatýs the fuzzy ratios of relative importance, allowing certain tolerance
scale is represented now by triangular numbers to express deviation, are formulated as constraints on the membership values

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 3 5 7 9

Fig. 2. Membership function of a triangular number. Fig. 3. Saatýs scale expressed as fuzzy sets.
 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829
Table 2
Saaty’s scale expressed in fuzzy numbers.
Relative importance Definition
~ Equal importance
1
~
3 Weak importance
~
5 Strong importance
~
7 Demonstrated importance over the other
~
9 Absolute importance
of the local priorities. The fuzzy local and global weights are deter-
mined via the extension principle.
4. Case study
In this section, in order to prove the applicability and validity
the proposed methodology is applied to a case study. An invest-
ment decision in CMSS technology of a given manufacturer was ta-
ken into consideration. Suppose that a set of three experts provide
the following fuzzy preference relations on a set of three alterna-
tives CMMS (CMMS1, CMMS2, CMMS3). This case study supposes
that functional aspects are covered by the three alternatives of
CMMS. They are in equal conditions regarding aspects as module
completion, function fitness, maintainability and other functional
aspects. This is corroborated in [24] that reports that main func-
tionality elements all belong to the core of a CMMS and are almost
always available regardless if the user asks for them or not. There-
fore, other intangible aspects are the factors that were considered
by the methodology.
As it is known, it may be impractical to make paired compari-
sons among CMMSs with respect to every detailed dimension or
sub attribute of the hierarchy. The difficulty arises because too
many attributes lead to numerous paired comparisons in AHP
and may cause an inefficient process. Therefore, a simplified model
was formulated. After a set of interviews, a series of six qualitative
attributes was selected to perform the analysis. The six attributes
are: flexibility, operation easiness, reliability, quality, implementa-
tion easiness and maintainability (Fig. 4). This six attributes are
represented by the six following symbols: AT1, AT2, AT3, AT4, AT5
and AT6 respectively. Once the decisions makers performed the
pair wise comparisons for the set of attributes A matrix is obtained
(Table 3). This comparison matrix is constructed by using Saaty’s
scale but now with triangular numbers.
To find the relative importance or priorities of the six attributes
eigenvector, eigenvalue and the RC index are to be computed. Thus,
the eigenvector (with triangular values) is as follows:
V ¼ ðð0:12 0:3 1:08Þð0:15 0:42 1:38Þð0:35 1:00 2:80Þ
 ð0:27 0:77 2:18Þð0:05 0:12 0:35Þð0:03 0:06 0:17ÞÞ
Before to proceed to perform the normalizations is necessary an
additional fuzzy ranking procedure in order to compare fuzzy
scores and to obtain a linear order among them. There is a number
of procedures to perform the ranking process [23] and more re-
cently [25], among them we propose, because of its simplicity,
the utilization of the representative method, which is given by
the following relation:
b ¼ a1 þ 2a2 þ a3
A ð12Þ
4 butes and alternatives taken into consideration a lot of time is nec-
where A = (a1, a2, a3) is a triangular number and b
a represents the
representative ordinal of a triangular number.
825
Considering this method and Eq. (9), the second element of the
eigenvector is the highest value and corresponds to the third attri-
bute (AT3) operation easiness.
The normalization process yields a new form of the eigenvector
in which each entry is a triangular number, as follows:
T ¼ ðð0:02 0:11 1:09Þð0:02 0:16 1:39Þð0:04 0:37 2:82Þ
 ð0:03 0:29 2:20Þð0:01 0:05 0:36Þð0:004 0:02 0:17ÞÞ
For testing the consistency of the resulting eigenvector, Saaty
proposed the following relation:
kmax ¼ T  w ð13Þ
where w is computed by the sum of the columns of the preferences
matrix .
W ¼ ðð5:3 11:3 19:5Þð4:5 8:7 15:6Þð1:8 2:4 5:9Þð2:6 3:9 8:9Þ
 ð16:1 24:2 34:3Þð25:0 35:0 45:0ÞÞ
Next kmax is calculated by
kmax ¼ ð0:55 6:55 98:94Þ
Then, to calculate the CI (crisp) we used the central value of the
triangular number kmax.
CI ¼ ð6:55  6Þ=5 ¼ 0:11
In addition, CR is computed
CR ¼ 0:11=1:24 ¼ 0:089 < 0:10
This proves total consistency of the evaluations expressed by
the comparisons matrix.
Based on the weight vector (eigenvector) the priorities or rela-
tive importance of the attributes were obtained by ranking the
eigenvector values. The ranked order of the six attributes is as fol-
lows: AT3, AT4, AT2, AT1, AT5 and AT6. Next, the three possible
CMMS were compared with respect each of the six attributes.
The corresponding fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices are shown
in Table 4.
Next, we can find the scores of the alternative CMMS with re-
spect to the six attributes, which are shown in Table 5.
The local weights of all CMMS for each attribute are obtained by
multiplying their relative weights by the weights of the attributes.
Table 6 shows these local weights.
The overall classification can be obtained by multiplying (trian-
gular product) the weights matrix (Table 6) by the transposed
eigenvector of the attributes (Table 5). Table 7 shows the overall
classification vector.
Thus the priority scores for the CMMS alternatives are obtained,
and they are ranked based on their magnitude (using Eq. (12)).
CMMS1 1.43
CMMS2 1.73
CMMS3 2.60
Thus, CMMS 3 must be selected by the users or recommended
by the AHP fuzzy methodology.
5. Proposed software
As can be easily proved, AHP with fuzzy numbers requires many
time-consuming calculations. Depending upon the number of attri-
essary to make all calculations in order to reach the final solution.
As the number of attributes increases, the dimension of the prob-
lem expands. This could lead to a great number of mathematical
826 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829

Service

Technic. Cap. CMMS 1

Flexibility
Selection of the most
suitable CMMS CMMS 2

Reputation

Friendliness CMMS 3

Implementation

Fig. 4. Abbreviated hierarchy.

Table 3
Comparisons matrix of the attributes considered for selection of CMMS.

AT1 AT2 AT3 AT4 AT5 AT6

AT1 (1, 1, 3) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (1/6, 1/4, 1/2) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (1, 3, 5) (5, 7, 9)
AT2 (1, 3, 5) (1, 1, 3) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (1/6, 1/4, 1/2) (1, 3, 5) (7, 9, 9)
AT3 (2, 4, 6) (1, 3, 5) (1, 1, 3) (1/7, 1/5, 1/3) (1/7, 1/5, 1/3) (1, 3, 5)
AT4 (1, 3, 5) (2, 4, 6) (3, 5, 7) (1, 1, 3) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (3, 5, 7)
AT5 (1/5, 1/3, 1) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (3, 5, 7) (1, 3, 5) (1, 1, 3) (3, 5, 7)
AT6 (1/9, 1/7, 1/5) (1/9, 1/9, 1/7) (1/5, 1/3, 1) (1/7, 1/5, 1/3) (1/7, 1/5, 1/3) (1, 1, 3)

Table 4
Fuzzy pairwise comparisons for the alternative CMMSs.

AT1 AT2
CMMS1 CMMS2 CMMS3 CMMS1 CMMS2 CMMS3
CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0)
CMMS2 (1.0 3.0 5.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 3.0 5.0) CMMS2 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0)
CMMS3 (1.0 3.0 5.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) CMMS3 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0)
AT3 AT4
CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) (0.11 0.11 0.14) CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (7.0 9.0 9.0) (0.11 0.11 0.14)
CMMS2 (1.0 3.0 5.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.11 0.14 0.2) CMMS2 (0.11 0.11 0.14) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.14 0.2 0.33)
CMMS3 (7.0 9.0 9.0) (5.0 7.0 9.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) CMMS3 (7.0 9.0 9.0) (3.0 5.0 7.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0)
AT5 AT6
CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0) CMMS1 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (4.0 6.0 8.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0)
CMMS2 (1.0 3.0 5.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 3.0 5.0) CMMS2 (1.0 3.0 5.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.33 1.0 1.0)
CMMS3 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (0.2 0.33 1.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) CMMS3 (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0) (1.0 1.0 3.0)

Table 5
Eigenvectors of the CMMS alternatives with respect to the six attributes.

VAT1 ((0.06 0.22 1.05) (0.10 0.46 1.79) (0.08 0.32 1.37)) Table 7
VAT2 ((0.09 0.33 0.82) (0.11 0.33 0.99) (0.13 0.33 1.19)) Overall classification vector (with triangular numbers).
VAT3 ((0.08 0.17 0.40) (0.11 0.25 0.55) (0.29 0.58 1.14))
CMMS1 (0.01 0.25 5.20)
VAT4 ((0.15 0.29 0.58) (0.08 0.16 0.33) (0.26 0.55 1.11))
CMMS2 (0.01 0.27 6.38)
VAT5 ((0.07 0.27 1.03) (0.10 0.46 1.76) (0.08 0.27 1.23))
CMMS3 (0.03 0.48 9.39)
VAT6 ((0.13 0.38 0.95) (0.10 0.34 0.88) (0.12 0.28 0.97))

Table 6
Local weights for the CMMS alternatives with respect to the six attributes.

AT1 AT2 AT3 AT4 AT5 AT6

CMMS1 (0.06 0.22 1.05) (0.09 0.33 0.82) (0.08 0.17 0.40) (0.15 0.29 0.58) (0.07 0.27 1.03) (0.13 0.38 0.95)
CMMS2 (0.10 0.46 1.79) (0.11 0.33 0.99) (0.11 0.25 0.55) (0.08 0.16 0.33) (0.10 0.46 1.76) (0.10 0.34 0.88)
CMMS3 0.08 0.32 1.37 (0.13 0.33 1.19) (0.29 0.58 1.14) (0.26 0.55 1.11) (0.08 0.27 1.23) (0.12 0.28 0.97)
 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829 827

Fig. 5. Screenshot of preference matrix.

Fig. 6. First phase analysis results.

and fuzzy operations. Therefore, software aid may be very useful to
automatically carry out the fuzzy AHP process. A software proto-
type for fuzzy AHP application was developed. The software was
programmed by using MATLAB 7.0 on a PC platform. The operation
sequence will be demonstrated in the following paragraphs,
through the use of several screenshots.
Initially, user must select and input the criteria chosen for eval-
uation the CMSS alternatives. The software prototype keeps in a
database a series of attributes that the user can select to perform
the comparison analysis. Additionally, the attribute database con-
tains a set of generic attributes labeled as ‘‘attribute i’’ where ‘‘i’’
stands for the number of a given attribute. Next, the user(s) must
fill the pairwise comparisons matrix for the attributes. Fig. 5 shows
the dialog box where the analyst can input the pairwise compari-
sons among software’s attributes.
To find the relative importance or priorities of the six attributes
eigenvector, eigenvalue and the RC index are to be computed. Once
the comparison matrix is entirely filled with importance values
(using fuzzy scale and slide bars) and total consistency is proved,
the system provides the ranking of the attributes according to the
information input by the user. The system provides the eigenvector
and the eigenvalue, plus the consistency value (Fig. 6). The system
presents the eigenvector using crisp numbers. Conversions of fuzzy
numbers into crisp numbers are carried out by the software.
In the second part of the software, the user must input the pair-
wise comparisons between two specific CMMS. This task is made
accordingly to each one of the considered attributes (Fig. 7).
Next, the software finds the scores of the alternative CMMSs
with respect to the six attributes. The software displays the results
using crisp representation. Therefore, defuzzification of the values
is performed and the priority scores for the CMMS alternatives are
obtained. The ranked list indicates that in this case the CMMS with
the higher value has to be selected by the users. In the final screen
of the system, the results of analysis are shown (Fig. 8).
828 O. Durán / Advances in Engineering Software 42 (2011) 821–829

Fig. 7. Comparison matrix among CMMSs with respect to the attribute Vendor’s market share.

Fig. 8. Final results.

6. Conclusions was found to function satisfactorily. We believe that this method-

In this paper a fuzzy-AHP-based methodology for selecting
Computerized Maintenance Management Software was proposed.
In order to take into account the uncertainty and in order to im-
prove imprecision in ranking attributes and/or software alterna-
tives, the presented approach introduces triangular numbers into
traditional AHP method. Adoption of fuzzy numbers allows deci-
sions-makers to have more freedom of estimation regarding the
overall importance of attributes and real alternatives. The pro-
posed methodology was tested on a real-world example and was
found that it functions satisfactorily. We believe that this method-
ology is a feasible alternative to both the conventional AHP meth-
od, as well as, other fuzzy-based approaches for CMMS selection,
mainly because of its simplicity and the possibility of incorporating
subjective parameters and linguistic terms in expressing main soft-
ware characteristics. Additionally, a fuzzy AHP based Software for
selecting computerized maintenance management was proposed.
The program was written in MATLAB and run on a desktop PC pow-
ered by Microsoft Windows XP. It was tested on several tests and
ology and the developed software tool is an alternative to both the
conventional AHP method as well as other fuzzy-based approaches
for software selection, mainly because of its simplicity and the pos-
sibility of incorporating subjective parameters.
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