Abstract
Usually, agricultural tractor investments are assessed using traditional economic techniques that only involve financial attributes, resulting in reductionist evaluations. However, tractors have qualitative and quantitative attributes that must be simultaneously integrated into the evaluation process. This article reports a hybrid and multi-attribute approach to assessing a set of agricultural tractors based on AHP-TOPSIS. To identify the attributes in the model, a survey including eighteen attributes was given to agricultural machinery salesmen and farmers for determining their importance. The list of attributes was presented to a decision group for a case of study, and their importance was estimated using AHP and integrated into the TOPSIS technique. In this case, one tractor was selected from a set of six alternatives, integrating six attributes in the model: initial cost, annual maintenance cost, liters of diesel per hour, safety of the operator, maintainability and after-sale customer service offered by the supplier. Based on the results obtained, the model can be considered easy to apply and to have good acceptance among farmers and salesmen, as there are no special software requirements for the application.
Highlights
Quality, service and cost are attributes associated with the product manufacturing sector; for agricultural products, these attributes, as well as government regulations are stricter, and compliance constitutes a strategic objective continuously pursued by agribusiness and small farms in Western Mexico on their way to participate in current dynamic and globalized market environments [1,2]
Results are shown in two subsections, the analysis of data collected through the questionnaires and the TOPSIS application
This paper presents a hybrid technique that combines analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and TOPSIS for the selection of agricultural technology, and a case study of tractor selection is presented as an example
Summary
Quality, service and cost are attributes associated with the product manufacturing sector; for agricultural products, these attributes, as well as government regulations are stricter, and compliance constitutes a strategic objective continuously pursued by agribusiness and small farms in Western Mexico on their way to participate in current dynamic and globalized market environments [1,2]. These small businesses have several options to achieve goals related to quality, cost and delivery time, among other performance indexes, but one of the most used strategies consists of investing in advanced technology (AT), which often includes tractors. Since there are many alternatives (tractors) currently available on the market (brand names), many attributes that characterize them and many evaluation techniques of these alternatives [6,7] create a confusing situation for them due to the complex decision making problem.
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