Title: Ranking model for human seating comfort factors in automobiles: a best worst approach

Authors: Talhah Shamshad Ansari; Noor Zaman Khan; Annayath Maqbool; Zahid A. Khan; Rajesh Attri

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), Jamia Nagar, New Delhi-110025, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), Jamia Nagar, New Delhi-110025, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Sector-6, Faridabad, Haryana – 121006, India

Abstract: Comfortable seating in an automobile has become a necessity for travellers, rather than a luxury. Seating comfort is essentially important for the health and safety of the automobile occupants. Several factors influence human seating comfort and therefore, this paper identifies them through comprehensive literature survey and experts' opinion. Thirty-two such factors are identified and they are categorised into five main categories. Subsequently, optimal weights of these factors are computed using a novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method, i.e., the best-worst method (BWM) based on which they are ranked so as to establish their importance concerning human seating comfort. Further, sensitivity analysis is carried out to ensure the robustness of the ranking results. This study is expected to assist design engineers and researchers in understanding the importance of the factors affecting human seating comfort in automobiles so that they can tackle them strategically to provide the desired seating comfort to the occupants.

Keywords: human seating comfort factors; multi-criteria decision making; best-worst method; ranking; sensitivity analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2022.124276

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2022 Vol.42 No.3, pp.353 - 378

Received: 01 Jan 2020
Accepted: 11 Apr 2020
Published online: 21 Jul 2022 *

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