Comparative analysis of the simple additive weighting method and the deviation-based pairwise assessment ratio technique for material selection

Abstract

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques are widely used to rank alternatives defined by multiple criteria. However, due to fundamental algorithmic differences, they often yield different results for the same problem. This study presents a comparative analysis of two MCDM approaches with distinct historical backgrounds: the simple additive weighting (SAW) method and the deviation-based pairwise assessment ratio technique (DEPART) method, a novel and recently introduced approach. The comparison assesses their effectiveness in material ranking within mechanical engineering. Two primary criteria guided this evaluation: the stability of alternative scores derived from each method and the degree of correlation between the rankings generated by SAW and DEPART relative to other well-established MCDM methods. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses show that the DEPART method outperforms the SAW method. The analysis was performed on two cases of material selection used for the production of gearbox housing and connecting rod, based on data from the literature. The comparison was conducted using two key performance metrics: the ranking similarity coefficient (r) and the stability coefficient (S), demonstrating DEPART's overall superior effectiveness.