Selection of Construction Materials using Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) Approach

Selection of a construction material is one of the important tasks in any construction project as it is influenced by many factors like cost, durability, eco friendliness, maintenance, availability, strengths, efficiency, etc. Initially, there is a trend where they used to consider only cost and efficiency factors in the selection of a construction material. Project executives face the difficulty to arrive at a reasonable decision considering all the other influencing factors. Different varieties of construction materials are available in the market with diverse properties; hence it becomes difficult to choose a particular type of material considering all parameters having importance. Here, we are using a simple methodology to make a selection of material on multiple attribute decision making (MADM) approach in place of the existing practice. MADM is making preference decisions (selecting, ranking, screening, prioritization, classification) over the available alternatives that are characterized by attributes. In order to select a material, a simple optimization method, Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) is used. This is also called as weighted sum method. It is the simplest and still the widest used MADM method.. By using SAW method the most suitable material can be determined. The result of this method is highly dependent on the weightages of attributes and may vary from time to time. This study will be useful as a decision making tool and for increasing the confidence in selecting the materials in big projects.