%0 Conference Paper %1 honkala2007comparison %A Honkala, Sauli %A Hämäläinen, Matti %A Salonen, Mikko %B DS 42: Proceedings of ICED 2007, the 16th International Conference on Engineering Design %D 2007 %K %N 317 %T Comparison of four existing concept selection methods %U https://www.designsociety.org/publication/25384/comparison_of_four_existing_concept_selection_methods %X Successful companies need new products in a constant flow in today’s highly competitive business environment. These products must stand out from competitors, the product quality must meet the customer demands and the profits must be adequate to keep stock-owners satisfied. Several important decisions are made at the early phase of each product development project. These decisions have an apparent impact on the final outcome of the project. For this reason, concept selection is an area in design science that is under considerable interest continuously. Many criteria based evaluation methods have been proposed by academia in order to make the concept selection process more credible and transparent. These evaluation methods incorporate several different approaches and a variety of mathematical calculation models to assist deciding upon the best alternative or alternatives. In addition to the different approach, the time needed to conduct the evaluation varies according to the method used and the amount of comparison criteria and concept alternatives used. The objective of this study is to compare existing multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods for concept selection, to identify possible differences in the methods, and to give recommendations for their use in concept selection in variable situations. In this paper, four MCDM methods were compared in eight cases that were adapted from various sources. The comparison primarily showed parallel results between compared methods, but certain noticeable differences also occurred. These differences are pointed out and clarified, and five suggestions for the general use of MCDM methods were made.

@inproceedings{honkala2007comparison, abstract = {Successful companies need new products in a constant flow in today’s highly competitive business environment. These products must stand out from competitors, the product quality must meet the customer demands and the profits must be adequate to keep stock-owners satisfied. Several important decisions are made at the early phase of each product development project. These decisions have an apparent impact on the final outcome of the project. For this reason, concept selection is an area in design science that is under considerable interest continuously. Many criteria based evaluation methods have been proposed by academia in order to make the concept selection process more credible and transparent. These evaluation methods incorporate several different approaches and a variety of mathematical calculation models to assist deciding upon the best alternative or alternatives. In addition to the different approach, the time needed to conduct the evaluation varies according to the method used and the amount of comparison criteria and concept alternatives used. The objective of this study is to compare existing multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods for concept selection, to identify possible differences in the methods, and to give recommendations for their use in concept selection in variable situations. In this paper, four MCDM methods were compared in eight cases that were adapted from various sources. The comparison primarily showed parallel results between compared methods, but certain noticeable differences also occurred. These differences are pointed out and clarified, and five suggestions for the general use of MCDM methods were made.}, added-at = {2025-09-24T11:37:28.000+0200}, author = {Honkala, Sauli and Hämäläinen, Matti and Salonen, Mikko}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/22052b3ad72f070ce45b8d1ffbcc29d18/gdmcbain}, booktitle = {DS 42: Proceedings of ICED 2007, the 16th International Conference on Engineering Design}, interhash = {f91cf728ba520fbbc2c4eff487e76d5b}, intrahash = {2052b3ad72f070ce45b8d1ffbcc29d18}, keywords = {}, number = 317, organization = {The Design Society}, timestamp = {2025-09-24T11:37:28.000+0200}, title = {Comparison of four existing concept selection methods}, url = {https://www.designsociety.org/publication/25384/comparison_of_four_existing_concept_selection_methods}, venue = {Paris}, year = 2007 }