Handling the Facility Location Issues of Medical Device Repair Center with a Hybrid AHP-TOPSIS Approach: A Case on the Facility Location Selection in the Western Thailand

Abstract

Facing the long-term market demand caused by Thailand's aging population and the outbreak of the COVID-19, while setting up hospitals and medical institutions to maintain people's demand for medical treatment, the utilization rate of various medical devices has also increased sharply, inevitably resulting in an urgent problem, namely, the maintenance of medical devices. The goal of this study is to combine two decision-making mathematical models, AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), to solve the site selection problem for a medical device maintenance center in western Thailand. This case comprehensively considers and analyzes ten key factors that affect the site selection with four candidate locations. After conducting interviews and research with seven senior experts from the medical device maintenance industry, and combining AHP and TOPSIS calculations, two main data analysis results were obtained. The weight values of the ten key factors obtained from the AHP operation indicate the three most important influencing factors, first customer quantity, second opportunities for the future, then making a profit. Based on another set of values of relative closeness calculated by TOPSIS, it can be concluded that position Prachuap Khiri Khan is the optimal solution for the case. The AHP-TOPSIS model proposed in this article fully utilizes the advantages of both algorithms and simplifies the calculation process to a certain extent. This model can be applied to address similar issues in medical industries, and can even be utilized in a wider range of multi criteria decision-making issues.

Facing the long-term market demand caused by Thailand's aging population and the outbreak of the COVID-19, while setting up hospitals and medical institutions to maintain people's demand for medical treatment, the utilization rate of various medical devices has also increased sharply, inevitably resulting in an urgent problem, namely, the maintenance of medical devices. The goal of this study is to combine two decision-making mathematical models, AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), to solve the site selection problem for a medical device maintenance center in western Thailand. This case comprehensively considers and analyzes ten key factors that affect the site selection with four candidate locations. After conducting interviews and research with seven senior experts from the medical device maintenance industry, and combining AHP and TOPSIS calculations, two main data analysis results were obtained. The weight values of the ten key factors obtained from the AHP operation indicate the three most important influencing factors, first customer quantity, second opportunities for the future, then making a profit. Based on another set of values of relative closeness calculated by TOPSIS, it can be concluded that position Prachuap Khiri Khan is the optimal solution for the case. The AHP-TOPSIS model proposed in this article fully utilizes the advantages of both algorithms and simplifies the calculation process to a certain extent. This model can be applied to address similar issues in medical industries, and can even be utilized in a wider range of multi criteria decision-making issues.