A FAHP-FTOPSIS approach for bioprinter selection

Bioprinting has been applied to fabricate biomedical parts such as skin, scaffolds, tissues, and muscles. However, most previous studies in this field compared the advantages and/or disadvantages of a bioprinter subjectively. A systematic and objective method for comparing various bioprinters, so as to recommend the most suitable one to a decision maker, is lacking. To address this issue, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) approach is proposed in this study. In the proposed FAHP-FTOPSIS approach, FAHP is applied to derive the fuzzy weights of factors critical to the suitability of a bioprinter, based on a decision maker’s subjective judgments. Subsequently, the derived fuzzy weights are fed into the FTOPSIS approach to evaluate the overall performance of a bioprinter. The FAHP-FTOPSIS approach has been successfully applied to the case of making a choice from nine bioprinters. Parametric analyses have also been conducted to show the robustness of the proposed methodology.