A software prototype for material handling equipment selection for construction sites

• A material handling equipment is a critical investment for a construction company.
• A software prototype based on quality function deployment technique is developed.
• Excavator and wheel loader are selected for specific construction applications.
• Sensitivity analysis is also performed.

Nowadays, every industry is experiencing demographic, economic and technological shifts, which have made innovation indispensable for them. The innovation in the construction industry can be evidenced through availability of a diverse range of new material handling equipments (MHEs) in the market having varying advanced features. An MHE is a critical investment made by a construction company that may significantly affect its future performance, competitiveness and sustainability. Therefore, selecting the best MHE with the desirable characteristics from a vast array of available alternatives is one of the most onerous tasks as often being faced by the construction engineers. In this paper, a software prototype based on quality function deployment (QFD) technique is designed and developed in Visual BASIC 6.0 for selecting two most suitable bulk-type MHEs, i.e. excavator and wheel loader for specific applications at a construction site. It is integrated with QFD method to provide due importance to the spoken and unspoken needs of the customers/construction engineers. It automates the entire MHE selection process and also performs sensitivity analysis study to investigate the effect of changing criterion weight on the alternative MHEs' ranking pattern. Its potentiality and applicability in solving bulk-type MHE selection problems is demonstrated in detail.