A Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Method to Reduce Imprecision and Uncertainty in Drilling Operation’s Factor Selection Process for Unidirectional Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic Composite Plates

Parametric selection in machining processes is recently understood as a route to reducing waste generation in drilling activities and achieving a robust resource distribution in drilling activities. However, the selection methods dominant in the literature lack competence in reducing uncertainties and imprecision associated with the drilling process. The purpose of this research is to reduce the uncertainty and imprecision in previously analyzed data that used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. This paper adjusts the uncertainty and imprecision by introducing a geometric mean-based fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. The selection method influences the drilling expert's preferences by imposing the fuzzy theory in a triangular member function that converts the crisp numerical values into fuzzy members and adequately suppresses the imprecision and uncertainty in the elements. The thrust force was positioned first in ranking with a FAHP method's weight of 0.415, which matched the literature value of 0.413 for the AHP method. It was found that the use of the FAHP method has corrected the imprecision and uncertainty introduced by the AHP method. It was found that the thrust force and torque were overestimated by or 0.48% and 3.95%, respectively and was accordingly corrected. Besides, no errors were found with the measurement of eccentricity response. Furthermore, the entry delamination, exit delamination and surface roughness were underestimated by -8.11%, -3.33% and -6.96%, respectively, and therefore corrected by the FAHP method. The usefulness of this effort is to enhance cost-effective decisions and the effectiveness in the distribution of scarce drilling resources.