Agricultural tractor selection: A hybrid and multi-attribute approach

  1. García-Alcaraz, J.L. 1
  2. Maldonado-Macías, A.A. 1
  3. Hernández-Arellano, J.L. 1
  4. Blanco-Fernández, J. 2
  5. Jiménez-Macías, E. 2
  6. Sáenz-Díez Muro, J.C. 2
  1. 1 Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez
    info

    Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez

    Ciudad Juárez, México

    ROR https://ror.org/05fj8cf83

  2. 2 Universidad de La Rioja
    info

    Universidad de La Rioja

    Logroño, España

    ROR https://ror.org/0553yr311

Revista:
Sustainability

ISSN: 2071-1050

Año de publicación: 2016

Volumen: 8

Número: 2

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.3390/SU8020157 SCOPUS: 2-s2.0-84960457234 WoS: WOS:000371830100050 GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Otras publicaciones en: Sustainability

Repositorio institucional: lock_openAcceso abierto Editor

Resumen

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. © 2016 by the authors.