A QFD-AHP Method for Bridges Structural System Selection During the Conceptual Design Phase.

Selection of structural system for new highway bridges during the conceptual design stage is critical to the success of the project and meeting stakeholders’ requirements. During bridge conceptual design, a large set of subjective requirements must be considered and evaluated in terms of multiple criteria. In addition, it is critical to incorporate client needs and expectation during the conceptual design stage to achieve their satisfaction toward the delivery stage of the project. For this reason, this paper is proposing an integrated methodology to improve the decision-making process during bridge conceptual design. The proposed methodology utilises the quality function deployment (QFD) method to translate client needs into design requirements and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to prioritizes competing alternatives based on multicriteria decision analysis. The main advantage of integrating QFD and AHP is their ability to rank the design alternatives in order of their effectiveness in meeting client needs. While the QFD analysis has the power to optimize the designers’ solutions from the point of view of quality engineering, the AHP analysis helps to make the best decision in a multicriteria decision-making situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]