Evaluating sustainable conceptual designs is a crucial part of the development of new products in various sectors because it contributes to the survival and prosperity of companies. Such designs must be compatible with a product’s functional requirements and be sustainable in economic, environmental, and social terms. Various criteria, some qualitative and others quantitative, are considered when evaluating sustainable conceptual designs; some criteria may also have sub-criteria, and these criteria and sub-criteria may differ in importance. How to effectively evaluate various criteria and sub-criteria and weight them are the major research problem. This study developed an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based ELECTRE I method to resolve the evaluation problem; the method entails a two-level hierarchical structure to depict the relationships between the major criteria and sub-criteria and their corresponding weights, with weights obtained through an AHP. Furthermore, an extension based on the addition of net concordance value and net adjusted discordance value is proposed for ranking alternative designs; this extension yields more distinguishable results than the method of [Nijkamp and Van Delft Multi-Criteria Analysis and Regional Decision-Making, Vol. 8 (Springer Science & Business Media, 1977)], and the proposed extension in the ELECTRE I method captures more information in the modified summation matrix when aggregating values in the concordance matrix and the modified discordance matrix, representing an advantage over the method of [Zhang et al. Virtual network embedding using node multiple metrics based on simplified ELECTRE method, IEEE Access 6 (2018) 37314–37327]. In addition, to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, the example of the evaluation and selection of sustainable conceptual designs in the furniture manufacturing industry is presented. Finally, a numerical comparison is made to show the advantages of the proposed method.

中文翻译：

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使用基于 AHP 的 ELECTRE I 方法评估可持续概念设计

评估可持续概念设计是各个领域新产品开发的关键部分，因为它有助于公司的生存和繁荣。此类设计必须与产品的功能要求兼容，并且在经济、环境和社会方面具有可持续性。在评估可持续概念设计时会考虑各种标准，一些是定性的，另一些是定量的；一些标准也可能有子标准，这些标准和子标准的重要性可能不同。如何有效地评价各种标准和子标准并对其进行加权是主要的研究问题。本研究开发了一种基于层次分析法 (AHP) 的 ELECTRE I 方法来解决评估问题；该方法需要一个两级的层次结构来描述主要标准和子标准之间的关系及其相应的权重，权重通过层次分析法获得。此外，提出了基于净一致性值和净调整后不一致值相加的扩展，用于对替代设计进行排名；这种扩展产生比 [Nijkamp 和 Van Delft 的方法更可区分的结果多准则分析与区域决策，卷。8 (Springer Science & Business Media, 1977)]，并且当聚合一致性矩阵和修改后的不一致矩阵中的值时，ELECTRE I 方法中提出的扩展在修改后的求和矩阵中捕获了更多信息，代表了优于 [张等人. 基于简化 ELECTRE 方法的使用节点多指标的虚拟网络嵌入，IEEE 访问 6(2018) 37314–37327]。此外，为了证明所提出方法的可行性，还提供了家具制造行业可持续概念设计的评估和选择示例。最后通过数值比较说明了所提方法的优势。