Int J Interact Des Manuf
DOI 10.1007/s12008-013-0183-2
ORIGINAL PAPER
Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based hybrid approach
in investment casting process
Sarojrani Pattnaik · D. B. Karunakar · P. K. Jha
Received: 23 September 2012 / Accepted: 25 February 2013
© Springer-Verlag France 2013
Abstract In this paper, the use of the Utility-Fuzzy-
Taguchi based hybrid approach in investment casting process
for optimizing multiple quality characteristics of wax pat-
terns has been conceptualized. Selection of an appropriate
orthogonal array, preference scale construction followed by
preference values, generation of multi-performance index
(MPI) by fuzzy logic, analysis of means and analysis of vari-
ance are employed to study the performance characteristics of
the process. The control factors considered are injection tem-
perature, injection pressure and injection time, whereas linear
shrinkage, surface roughness and penetration are the corre-
sponding responses. The optimal setting obtained by the pro-
posed method is validated by confirmatory experiments. This
concludes the application feasibility of the proposed method
for parametric optimizations in investment casting process.
Further, the result of the aforementioned optimization tech-
nique has been compared with that of Utility-Taguchi tech-
nique. It is found that the optimal condition for both is same,
while the most influential process parameter is different in
both cases due to employment of random selection of weights
in Utility-Taguchi method.
Keywords Optimization · fuzzy logic · Utility concept ·
Taguchi method · Investment casting
1 Introduction
Investment casting (IC) or lost wax process is a special-
ized manufacturing technique used for producing high qual-
ity, net-shape complex parts. As per Beeley and Smart [1],
S. Pattnaik (B) · D. B. Karunakar · P. K. Jha
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, India
e-mail: rani_saroj7@yahoo.co.in
it is considered as the most ancient of metal casting arts.
Technological advances have also made it the most mod-
ern and versatile of all metal casting processes. It is now
used to cast some of the most complex castings for some
of the most critical applications. The near-net shape objec-
tive with IC is seen, not only as a means of providing
the engineer with a direct, efficient and economical route
to the manufacture of a finished component, but also as
a contribution to the conservation of costly materials and
energy.
In this casting technique, a pattern of desired shape, usu-
ally made of wax, is used to form the inside cavity of a
ceramic shell. The pattern or a cluster of such patterns are
gated to a wax sprue. Then the sprued pattern or patterns are
invested with ceramic slurry, which when solidified builds a
shell around the wax pattern. The pattern wax is then removed
from the shell by melting. The resulting ceramic shell hard-
ened by heating is filled with molten metal to produce the
finished part.
Jain [2] stated that waxes are commonly used as pattern
materials and the desirable properties in a good wax pattern
includes low ash content (up to 0.05 %), resistance to the
primary coat material as investment, high tensile strength
and hardness, good wettability, resistance to oxidation, low
shrinkage, low viscosity, low melting point, fast setting rate,
easy reclaimability and non-hazardous to health. Costs, avail-
ability, ease of recycling, toxicity, resistance to binders or
solvents are the other important factors in selecting a pattern
wax. Investigations of Wood and Ludwig [3] revealed that
the waxes used in the IC process are complex mixtures of
many compounds including natural or synthetic wax, natural
or synthetic resin, solid organic fillers etc. Resins are added
to the blend to increase the strength and fillers, consisting
of fine powder material, are primarily used to improve the
shrinkage characteristics.
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Bonilla et al. [4] found that, apart from the composition of
wax blend in affecting the quality of wax patterns, there are
some other factors such as geometry of the cast part and injec-
tion process parameters like injection temperature, injection
pressure, injection flow rate, die temperature, etc., which are
also crucial in making a good wax pattern. The influence of
the pattern geometry is especially difficult to study in predict-
ing dimensional changes caused by wax solidification. It is
necessary to identify the important control factors and then,
the optimal combination of selected control factors should
be analyzed for improving the quality of the wax patterns.
Rezavand et al. [5] studied the effect of wax injection process
parameters on the final dimensions and (dimensional) stabil-
ity of the wax pattern of a turbine blade in relation to the
critical blade geometry. Injection temperature and holding
time were chosen as variable process parameters and the
effect of the holding time was found to be more dominant
than that of the injection temperature. It is found from their
study that in the injection step, the final dimensions of wax
pattern are affected by the type of wax used, geometry of the
pattern to be produced and injection process parameters cho-
sen. The findings of the authors may be practically used to
further improve the shrinkage of wax patterns of the turbine
blades.
Rahmati et al. [6] performed the dimensional accu-
racy analysis of the wax patterns, which was created from
the room temperature vulcanization (RTV) silicon rubber
tooling. The input variables considered were wax injec-
tion temperature, vacuum pressure and mould temperature.
Other factors such as room temperature, room humidity,
injection rate and so on were assumed to be constant dur-
ing the injection moulding process. Design of experiments
using Taguchi approach was used for the determination of
optimal conditions. It was found that all the input process
parameters significantly affected the dimensional accuracy
of the wax patterns created by RTV tooling and the most
effective factor among them was vacuum pressure. From
the above study, it is concluded that the optimizations of
injection process parameters can be done successfully using
Taguchi’s method. Also, rapid tooling could be used as suc-
cessful alternative in place of traditional tooling for small
and medium scale investment casting industries. Again, Pat-
tnaik et al. [7] also employed Taguchi’s parameter design
approach in finding the optimal setting of injection process
parameters for making wax patterns using a brass die. The
process parameters considered were: injection temperature,
injection pressure, injection time and die temperature and
the response parameter was linear shrinkage of the wax pat-
tern. The results indicated that injection temperature was the
most significant process parameter, while injection time was
the insignificant process parameter in shrinkage reduction
of wax patterns. Though, the research work carried out by
the authors clearly highlights the influence of process para-
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Int J Interact Des Manuf
meters on linear contraction of wax patterns, some models
could have been developed which would explain the case in
general.
Literature available in the field of IC, deals with either
optimizing single quality characteristic (QC) or studying
about the influence of process parameters on the shrinkage
of wax patterns. Though the quality of wax pattern is mostly
judged by shrinkage rate, but it is not the only QC to assess
the features of the wax patterns. Other QCs such as surface
finish, hardness, strength, wettability, etc., cannot be ignored
as the traits of wax patterns are ultimately transferred to the
castings. Hence, it is essential to consider the multiple QCs
of wax patterns to increase the acceptability of the investment
cast product without rejection. Till now, no work has been
reported in the literature on multi-response optimization of
wax patterns in the IC process. Thus, the present work aims
at finding an optimal combination of process parameters to
get the best outcome in terms of multiple QCs of the wax
patterns.
Now coming to multi-response optimization problems, the
common approaches for solving them are multiple regres-
sion analysis, response surface methodology (RSM), arti-
ficial neural network (ANN), optimization algorithms like
genetic algorithm (GA), swarm intelligence, controlled ran-
dom search algorithm (CRS), etc. The major disadvantage
of the above mentioned methods is the requirement of huge
amount of data for developing an adequate model. This
increases the cost of experimentation and leads to loss of con-
siderable time. Other techniques based on Taguchi analysis
for multi-response optimization problems involve principal
component analysis (PCA), grey relational analysis (GRA),
Utility concept, etc. In PCA, the principal component which
has maximum accountability proportion (AP) is generally
treated as overall performance index. But when more than
one principal component have considerable value of account-
ability proportion which cannot be ignored, then the prob-
lem of computing composite principal component arises.
The grey relational analysis based on grey system theory has
been proved to be a useful tool for solving poor, incomplete
and uncertain systematic problems with only partial known
information. However, the method has some limitations. The
main difficulty lies in assigning weights to the individual
QCs and mostly weights are assigned randomly to the QCs
as per their importance in practice. Assignment of response
priority weights is a big challenge in solving multi-response
optimization problems and it varies depending on decision-
makers perception.
Multi-response optimizations using Utility concept have
been performed successfully in the field of machining,
electro-chemical honing, laser transformation hardening, etc.
[8–10]. But so far very little work has been done by the
researchers employing Utility concept for solving multi-
response optimization problems. Further, it is observed that
Int J Interact Des Manuf
it has never been applied for the process optimization of
the investment casting process. Hence, an attempt has been
made in this article on application of Utility concept for
solving multi-response optimization of wax patterns in the
IC process. However, this method also requires approxi-
mate selection of response priority weights for converting
the multi-objective function into single objective function.
As a general practice, usually equal weights are assigned
by the researchers. If the weighs are chosen on the basis of
some rule, the chances of uncertainties in the process may
be reduced. Fuzzy logic (FL) fuzzifies the human concepts
to deal with multiple performance characteristics.
To improve the workability of Utility concept, FL and
Taguchi method may be applied along with it to establish the
optimal settings of process parameters for multi-response
optimization. In this way, each process can take the advan-
tage of one other and build a robust methodology for solving
complicated problems involving multiple QCs. Hence, in the
present research work, a hybrid approach of Utility concept
and FL has been used along with Taguchi method for solv-
ing multi-response optimization of wax patterns in the IC
process. The process parameters include injection tempera-
ture, injection pressure and injection time. Linear shrinkage,
surface roughness and penetration are considered as QCs
of the wax patterns. The application of utility based fuzzy
approach converts multi-objective function into single objec-
tive function, which is later solved by Taguchi method, by the
use of tools such as analysis of means (ANOM) and analysis
of variance (ANOVA). Verification tests are performed to test
the feasibility of the proposed method.
2 Experimental work
This section involves selecting the best composition of the
wax blend for pattern production, determining process para-
meters and their levels and appropriate orthogonal array (OA)
for design of experiments, and finally, conducting experi-
ments as per selected OA to get the output in terms of linear
shrinkage (LS), surface roughness (SR) and penetration (P)
of wax patterns.
2.1 Selection of the best wax blend
The working efficiency of IC process greatly depends on the
properties of waxes chosen for pattern making. The various
waxes used are of animal type, vegetable type, petroleum
type, mineral type and synthetic type. In this study, the waxes
used were paraffin wax, carnauba wax, microcrystalline wax
and polyethylene wax, and starch was used as filler material to
improve the shrinkage characteristics of the wax blend. One
of the important properties of the starch includes sufficient
wettability with the wax blend. Also, it is inexpensive and
easily procurable. During trial experiments, it was found that
starch was surfacially compatible with the wax blend. Hence,
it was selected as filler material in this research work. The
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the selected
ingredients are shown in Fig. 1 and it can be clearly seen
that paraffin wax, carnauba wax and microcrystalline wax
(in the form of slabs) have homogenous structure. The surface
morphology of polyethylene wax (granular form) is smooth
and the grains are spherical in shape. Starch powder has a
more compact structure and the grains are either spherical or
polygonal in shape.
Each of the above selected ingredients has some attributes
required for an ideal wax blend. However the percentage of
each of the ingredients to be added to get the best results
was not known. As the best wax blend composition was not
identified initially, many trial experiments were conducted in
the laboratory by varying the individual compositions each
time, and corresponding linear shrinkage, volumetric shrink-
age and surface roughness were measured for each of the wax
patterns made from different blends. The wax blend which
showed least shrinkages and surface roughness was consid-
ered as the best blend. However, in this article, only the best
three wax blends have been reported as shown in Table 1 [11].
It was desired to make wax patterns with very thin
fins from silicon rubber mould. So, the molten wax blend
was injected into the mould using a vacuum wax injection
machine, at constant injection process parameters. During
injection, the injection parameters were kept constant. The
input parameters were as follows: injection temperature at
75 ◦ C; injection pressure at 0.5 kg/cm2 and injection time
at 42 s. Three wax patterns were produced from each of the
wax blends. The melting point (MP) of all the wax blends
was determined by Differential thermal analysis (DTA). Fig-
ure 2 shows the wax patterns made from the best three wax
blends. The corresponding average values of linear shrink-
age, volumetric shrinkage and surface roughness of the wax
blends is reported in Table 2.
It is desired that wax pattern should possess least shrink-
age and surface roughness values for producing a high qual-
ity casting. The results indicated that the wax blend III had
minimum linear shrinkage, minimum volumetric shrinkage
and minimum surface roughness values as compared to other
blends. It can also be seen from the Tables 1 and 2 that
increase in the percentage of polyethylene wax and starch
content led to significant improvement in wax properties.
However, it was also found by trial experiments that fur-
ther increase in the amount of starch (25 % or more) poorly
affected the surface finish of the wax patterns. However,
starch is explored as a good filler material at relatively less
cost for IC waxes. This may be used by the investment cast-
ers around the globe for improving the properties of wax
patterns and ultimately, the castings. The composition of the
wax blend III has shown appreciable pattern characteristics as
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Fig. 1 SEM images of a Paraffin wax b Micro-crystalline wax c Carnauba wax d Polyethylene wax e Starch powder

Table 1 Compositions of the

Blend Paraffin wax Carnaubawax Microcrystalline wax Polyethylene wax Starch
wax blends (weight by percent)
I 40 10 30 4 16
II 30 10 30 10 20
III 25 5 35 12 23

desired by any IC industry. Hence, further experiments were
carried out using blend III and injection process parameters
were varied each time to determine the optimum process
parameters.
2.2 Selection of process parameters and orthogonal array
On the basis of trial experiments and literature review, injec-
tion temperature, injection pressure and injection time were
selected to visualize their effect on the quality of the wax pat-
terns. The other parameters such as wax composition, ambi-
ent temperature, vacuum pressure, pattern cooling inside the
mould and after ejection from the mould were fixed during
the entire investigation. The range of the selected process
parameters were decided by conducting the experiments with
one variable at a time approach. The process parameters, their
designed symbols and range are given in Table 3.
From Table 3, it is clear that there are three factors and
three levels used in the experiment. If three levels were
assigned to each of these factors and a factorial experimen-

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Table 4 L9 Orthogonal array

Run no. Factors
A B C

1 1
2 1
3 1
4 2
5 2
6 2
7 3
8 3
9 3
1 1
2 2
3 3
1 2
2 3
3 1
1 3
2 1
3 2

Fig. 2 Wax patterns from different blends
tal design was employed using each of these values, num-
ber of permutations would be very large. As per Taguchi’s
method, the total DOF (degree of freedom) of selected OA
must be greater than or equal to the total DOF required for
the experiment. Each three level parameter has 2 degrees
of freedom, which is defined as (number of level-1). Hence
the total DOF required for three parameters, each at three
levels is [3 × (3 − 1)] i.e. 6. Thus L9 orthogonal array was
selected to make the present analysis. This design requires
nine experiments with three parameters, each at three
levels. The interactions were neglected. The assignment of
the process parameters is given in Table 4.
2.3 Experimental results
As per Taguchi design, nine experiments were performed at
the trial conditions. For each of the blends, three wax patterns
were prepared each time. The ambient temperature during
pattern production was in the range of (25–30) ◦ C. The val-
ues of LS, SR and P for each trial condition were recorded
and are furnished in Table 5. R1 , R2 and R3 represent three
replications of the wax patterns at each of the combinations.
3 Proposed methodology
This section describes about the Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based
hybrid approach in order to determine the process parameters
with optimal QCs.
3.1 Taguchi method and utility concept
Taguchi method is a statistical tool for the design of high
quality systems. It has been used commonly in analyzing
engineering problems to optimize QCs by means of settings
of design parameters. Phadke [12] stated that the effect of
uncontrollable factors (humidity, noise, vibrations etc.) can
be nullified by the proper selection of the level combina-
tion of controllable factors or process parameters. Taguchi
method uses a special set of arrays called orthogonal arrays,
which could provide full information about all the factors
that affect the QCs. The crux of the OAs lies in choosing

Table 2 Comparison of various

Wax blend MP (◦ C) Linear shrinkage (%) Volumetric shrinkage (%) Surface roughness (nm)
properties of wax blends
I 66 3.16 7.89 86.5739
II 67 3.35 7.17 60.069
III 65 2.84 6.28 58.5907

Table 3 Process parameters and

Symbol Process parameters Range Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
their values at different levels
A Injection temperature 75–85 (◦ C) 75 80 85
B Injection pressure 0.5–0.7 (kg/cm2 ) 0.5 0.6 0.7
C Injection time 40–50 (s) 40 45 50

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Table 5 Experimental results of QCs

Trial no. Linear shrinkage (%) Surface roughness (nm) Penetration (mm) under 100 gm load condition

R1 R2 R3 R1 R2 R3 R1 R2 R3

1 2.296 2.293 2.296 73.4143 73.6743 72.9757 4 2 3

2 2.292 2.29 2.291 81.5523 82.1853 82.5779 2 3 3
3 2.284 2.289 2.288 86.5739 89.2759 87.3497 2 2 2
4 2.319 2.316 2.316 58.5907 59.6365 59.3761 5 5 4
5 2.311 2.310 2.303 62.6494 65.1735 63.9784 4 5 4
6 2.302 2.298 2.297 42.2754 41.9981 42.6729 3 3 4
7 2.401 2.374 2.341 46.8169 44.4139 46.7294 6 6 7
8 2.342 2.34 2.338 34.5098 38.0024 35.8084 5 5 6
9 2.327 2.326 2.322 32.816 35.4724 38.4272 5 5 5
Mean LS = 2.315 % Mean SR = 58.479 nm Mean P = 4.075 mm

the level combinations of the design variables for each test
input. While there are many standard OAs available, each
of the arrays is meant for a specific number of independent
design variables and levels. The selection of OA is based on
total DOF of all the factors, and the number of rows of the
selected OA should be greater than or equal to the total DOF
of any process. Taguchi recommended the use of another tool
called Signal-to-Noise (S/N) ratio to quantify the effect of
variations. For this, the experimental results are transformed
into S/N ratios. The major steps of implementing the Taguchi
method are identifying the factors/interactions, determining
the levels of each factor, selecting an appropriate OA, assign-
ing the factors/interactions to columns of the OA, conducting
the experiments, analyzing the data and finding optimal lev-
els and lastly, carrying out the confirmation experiment.
scales are weighted to obtain a composite number (overall
utility). The minimum acceptable quality level for each QC
is set at a preference number of 0 and the best available
quality is assigned a preference number of 9, arbitrarily. The
preference number Pi can be expressed on a logarithmic scale
as follows:
xi
Pi = A log  (2)
xi
where xi is the value of any QC i, xi is the minimum accept-
able value of the QC i and A is a constant. Arbitrarily, A is
selected at xi = x*, where x* is the optimum value of xi , then
Pi = 9.
The overall utility can be calculated as:

n

Though Taguchi method has been successful in solving U= Wi Pi (3)

single response optimization problems, it cannot be used i=1

alone for solving multi-response optimization problems as
each QC may not have the same measurement unit. Hence,
the evaluations of various QCs should be combined to give a
composite index. Such a composite index is known as utility
of a product. In Utility concept, weights are assigned arbi-
trarily to the various responses for calculating the individual
utility values. The sum of assigned weights to all QCs is
always equals to 1. Then, the sum of utilities of each QC
represents the overall utility of a product. As per Yang and
Hung [13], the overall utility function may be written as

n
U(x1 , x2 , . . . xn ) = Wi Ui (xi )
i=1
The utility function is of “higher the better” type. As per
Kaladhar et al. [14], if the overall utility is maximized, the
QCs considered for evaluation of utility will be optimized
(maximized or minimized). The main drawback of applica-
tion of Utility concept in multi-response optimization prob-
lems lies in the selection of random weights for each QC.
In order to overcome the present problem, the original Util-
ity concept has been modified. Preference scales for QCs
are constructed in usual manner and based on it, preference
values are computed for each of the replications. Then, the
mean of preference values for each QC is determined, which
is used as input variable in fuzzy logic modeling to achieve
(1)
better performance of the product.

where xi represents the measure of effectiveness of ith QC,
n represents no. of QCs and Wi is the weight assigned to the
ith QC.
To determine the utility value for a number of QCs, a
preference scale (PS) for each QC is constructed. Later, these
3.2 Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy models are mathematical means of representing
vagueness and imprecise information; accordingly it is
termed as fuzzy. Ravi [15] stated that these models have the

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Start
Selection of process parameters and quality
characteristics of the process
Determine the levels of process parameter
Selection of an appropriate orthogonal array
Conduct of experiments based on orthogonal
array
Determine predicted optimal values of individual
quality characteristics using Taguchi method
Construct preference scales for each quality
characteristic
Determine preference values of each of the
quality characteristics
Calculate mean of the preference values of
each of the quality characteristic
Fuzzify the preference values of each quality
characteristic using fuzzy inference system
Determine MPI by defuzzification
Selection of optimal injection process
parameters
Performing ANOVA
Conduct of confirmation test and verification
of the optimal settings
End
Fig. 3 Flow diagram for multi-response optimization by Utility-
Fuzzy-Taguchi based hybrid approach
capability of recognizing, representing, manipulating, inter-
preting and utilizing data or information that are vague and
lack certainty. As per Zadeh [16], a fuzzy logic unit com-
prises of a fuzzifier, membership functions, a fuzzy rule base,
an inference engine, and a defuzzifier. In the fuzzy logic
analysis, the fuzzifier uses membership functions to fuzzify
the real world input. The fuzzy inference engine is the ker-
nel of a fuzzy system. The inference engine performs fuzzy
reasoning based on fuzzy rules to generate a fuzzy output.
Finally, the defuzzifier converts the fuzzy output into crisp
values, a form of real world input. A membership function
is used to determine how each value is mapped to a mem-
bership value between 0 and 1. Typical membership func-
tions that are used to represent a fuzzy set are Triangular,
Trapezoidal, Sigmoid, Singleton and Gaussian. A fuzzy rule
base (consisting of a group of if-then control rules) is devel-
oped to express the inference relationship between input and
output. A typical linguistic fuzzy rule called Mamdani is
described as
Rule 1: if x1 is A1 and x2 is B1 then y is C1 else
Rule 2: if x1 is A2 and x2 is B2 then y is C2 else
………………………………………………
Rule n: if x1 is An and x2 is Bn then y is Cn else
Ai , Bi , and Ci are fuzzy subsets defined by the correspond-
ing membership functions, i.e., µAi , µBi and µCi .
In this paper, the mean of preference values for each
QC is treated as input to the fuzzy logic database and the
max-min compositional operation of Mamdani is adopted
to perform the fuzzy reasoning. The defuzzification method
called center-of-gravity method is further employed to
transform the fuzzy inference output into a non-fuzzy value
called multi-performance index (MPI).
3.3 Flow diagram of Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based hybrid
approach
The steps of the proposed and adopted approach are depicted
in Fig. 3 and described as follows.
Step1: Injection process parameters and QCs are selected.
Step 2: Levels of process parameters are determined and
an appropriate OA is chosen for designing the experi-
ments.
Step 3: The experiments arranged as per selected OA are
carried out.
Step 4: Optimal values of individual QCs are predicted.
Step 5: Preference scales for QCs are constructed.
Step 6: Preference values of the QCs based on preference
scales are computed for each of the replications.
Step 7: The average of the preference values for each QC
are determined.
Step 8: Fuzzy modeling is applied to preference values
of each QC.
Step 9: MPI is determined by defuzzification method.
Step 10: Analyses of means of MPI are conducted to find
out optimal injection process parameters.
Step 11: Analyses of variance of MPI is performed
to determine the significant process parameters of the
process.
Step 12: Confirmatory tests as per optimal conditions are
performed and finally verification of the results is done
to check the validity of the applied methodology.
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Table 6 Predicted optimal results and generated preference scales for QCs
QC Optimal settings Significant process Predicted optimal Minimum accept- Preference scale
parameters value (x∗i ) able response
value (xi )

LS A1 B3 C2 A, B 2.28 % 2.5 % PLS = −224.97 log (xi /2.5)

SR A3 B3 C1 A, B, C 28.06 nm 90 nm PSR = −17.78 log (xi /90)
P A1 B3 C1 A, B 1.925 mm 7.5 mm PP = −15.24 log (xi /7.5)

Table 7 Preference values of QCs

Sl. no. Preference values of QCs
Linear shrinkage Surface roughness Penetration

1 8.3167 8.4445 8.3167 0.7611 0.7014 0.6646 4.1606 8.7482 6.0646

2 8.4871 8.5724 8.5297 0.2997 0.0624 0.2308 8.7482 6.0646 6.0646
3 8.8287 8.6151 8.6577 1.5729 1.5456 1.6191 8.7482 8.7482 8.7482
4 7.3429 7.4693 7.4693 2.7972 2.4922 2.6352 2.6836 2.6836 4.1605
5 7.6805 7.7228 8.0193 2.9733 3.0048 2.8603 4.1605 2.6836 4.1605
6 8.0617 8.2316 8.2742 3.3144 3.1778 3.2116 6.0646 6.0646 4.1605
7 3.9477 5.0527 6.4203 4.2988 3.9447 4.1414 1.4769 1.4769 0.4566
8 6.3786 6.4621 6.5456 6.4193 6.4874 6.5280 2.6836 2.6836 1.4769
9 7.0064 7.0484 7.2165 5.0467 5.4535 5.0611 2.6836 2.6836 2.6836

4 Multi-response optimization using
Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based hybrid approach
This section comprises of computation of preference values,
prediction of MPI by fuzzy modeling, finding out the optimal
process parameters by ANOM, determination of significant
process parameters by ANOVA and prediction of optimal
value of QCs followed by confirmation tests.
of individual QCs are computed, which are designated as
PVLS , PVSR and PVP respectively. The results are reported
in Table 8. However, in order to get the improved result and
decrease the data uncertainty, fuzzy logic modeling is imple-
mented further.
4.2 Calculation of multiple performance indexes by fuzzy
logic modelling

4.1 Determining preference scales and preference values
for QCs
Taguchi method is extensively used for determining the opti-
mal combination of process parameters to improve processes
with single QC. Hence, the experimental data obtained in
Table 4 is used to estimate the optimal values of individual
QCs by the application of Taguchi method. Preference scales
for the QCs are constructed on the basis of their individual
predicted optimal values and minimum acceptable response
values obtained using Eq. (3). Since, all the QCs are of
lower-the-better type, the selection of minimum acceptable
response values was based on the maximum of correspond-
ing experimental trial results. The individual optimal settings
and the generated preference scales for QCs are furnished in
Table 6.
On the basis of preference scales, experimental results are
transformed into preference values (PVs) for each trial as
shown in Table 7. Then, average of the three trials of PVs
In order to facilitate the optimization of multiple QCs of the
wax patterns, the scores of the three PVs are integrated as
a total preference score, which is designated as MPI using
fuzzy modeling approach. The block diagram of fuzzy logic
controller (FLC) made in this study is shown in Fig. 4. The
FL input and output membership functions (triangular) are
illustrated in Figs. 5, 6 respectively. It is clear from the figures
that there are three fuzzy sets for the input variables: small
(S), medium (M) and large (L) and five for the outputs: very
small (VS), small (S), medium (M), large (L), very large
(VL). Total twenty seven fuzzy rules have been formed for
building the FLC and it is shown in Table 9.
Graphical representation of FLC is shown in Fig. 7. The
rows represent twenty seven rules and columns represent the
three input variables and one output variable. The location
of triangle indicates the determined fuzzy sets for each input
and output. The height of the darkened area in each triangle
corresponds to the fuzzy membership value for that fuzzy
set. For experiment no. 1, the input i.e. preference values for

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Table 8 Average preference values of QCs

Sl. no. PVLS PVSR PVP

1 8.359 0.709 6.324

2 8.530 0.198 6.959
3 8.700 1.579 8.748
4 7.427 2.642 3.176
5 7.808 2.946 3.668
6 8.189 3.235 5.430
7 5.140 4.128 1.137
8 6.462 6.478 2.281 Fig. 6 Output membership function
9 7.090 5.187 2.684

Table 9 Fuzzy rules

MPI LS

S M L

SR S
P S VS S M
M S M L
L M L L
Fig. 4 Block diagram of fuzzy logic controller SR M
P S S M L
M M L L
L L L VL
SR L
P S M M L
M M L VL
L VL VL VL

11 and can be visualized from Fig. 8. It is clear from Table 11

Fig. 5 Input membership function
LS, SR and P are 8.359, 0.709 and 6.324 respectively and the
defuzzified output which gives MPI-1, is 0.64.
The complete results of the predicted MPIs for each of
the nine tests evaluated from the fuzzy logic reasoning in
the Matlab Fuzzy Tool Box are shown in Table 10. As utility
function is of higher-the-better type, higher the value of MPI,
the corresponding factor combination is closer to the optimal.
From Table 9, it can be seen clearly that experiment no. 3 has
the best multiple QCs among the nine runs performed, having
highest MPI. It is followed by experiments no. 6 and 1, being
ranked as second and third, respectively.
4.3 Performing ANOM and ANOVA
For each run of experimental design, means of the MPIs are
computed. The response table for MPI is furnished in Table
and Fig. 7 that MPI is highest at the first level of parameter A
(A1 ), third level of parameter B (B3 ) and first level of parame-
ter C (C1 ). Hence, A1 B3 C1 levels of the process parameters
are considered as best levels for overall reducing the linear
shrinkage, surface roughness and penetration of the wax pat-
terns. From the ‘max-min’ range evaluation, the effect of each
control factor on MPI has been determined and it is found that
process parameter A i.e. injection temperature seems to have
the most significant effect on MPI, followed by injection
pressure and injection time. However, the relative impor-
tance among the factors for the multiple QCs still needs to be
investigated by using ANOVA method, which enables more
accurate determination of the optimal levels of the process
parameter combinations. Hence, ANOVA was performed on
the values of MPI as shown in Table 12. It is clear from Table
12, that the injection temperature (A), injection pressure (B)
and injection time (C) are significant at 95 % confidence level
and thus, they affect the properties of the wax patterns. It is
also found that the influence of injection temperature is com-
paratively larger than that of injection pressure and injection

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Fig. 7 Fuzzy logic controller for experiment no. 1

Table 10 MPI for each of the

Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
tests
MPI 0.64 0.625 0.75 0.46 0.527 0.699 0.375 0.5 0.514

Table 11 Response table for

Process parameter Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Max-min Rank
the MPI
A 0.672 0.562 0.463 0.209 1
B 0.492 0.551 0.654 0.162 2
Total mean value of the MPI = C 0.613 0.533 0.551 0.08 3
0.5656

time as regards to the quality of wax patterns and the same

results were also predicted by ANOM.

4.4 Predicted optimal values of QCs

The optimal values of QCs were predicted at the selected

levels of significant parameters i.e. A1 , B3 and C1 using the
following equation:

q
α̂ = αm + (ᾱi − αm ) (4)
i=1
where αm is the total mean of all experimental runs of QC,
ᾱi is the mean of ith process parameter at optimal level
and q is the number of parameters that significantly affect
the QCs.
The predicted optimal values of LS, SR and P are found
Fig. 8 Response curve for MPI
to be 2.276 %, 69.906 nm and 1.74 mm respectively.

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Table 12 ANOVA results for

MPI (LS, SR and P) Parameter SS DOF V F-ratio P%

A 0.065371 2 0.0327 – 55.97

B 0.040689 2 0.0203 – 34.84
C 0.010598 2 0.0053 – 9.074
SS sum of squares, DOF degree E 0.00014 2 0.0000 – 0.12
of freedom, V variance, P
Total (T) 0.116798 8 – 100
percent contribution.
* Significant at 95 % CI

Table 13 Summary of results

Injection process parameter Initial process condition Optimal condition
Predicted value Experimental value

Level A1 B2 C2 A1 B3 C1 A1 B3 C1
Linear shrinkage 2.291 2.276 2.281
Surface roughness 82.1052 69.906 66.0094
Penetration 2.67 1.74 1.67
MPI 0.625 0.759 0.808
Improvement in MPI – 0.134 0.183

Fig. 9 Two dimensional plot of surface roughness at a initial condition b optimal condition

4.5 Confirmatory tests
Since the optimal settings of injection process parameters
was not included in the main experiment, three confirma-
tion experiments were conducted at the same for making the
wax patterns. The summary of the results at initial and opti-
mal condition are published in Table 13. The result indicates
that there is significant improvement of the QCs at optimal
condition. The average values of the QCs i.e. LS, SR and
P at initial and optimal conditions are found to be 2.291 %,
82.1052 nm and 2.67 mm and 2.281 %, 66.0094 nm and
1.67 mm, respectively. Figure 9 shows two-dimensional plot
for surface roughness of wax patterns at initial and optimal
condition. MPIs of initial process condition, predicted opti-
mal condition and confirmatory experiments are calculated
and it is found that there is an augmentation of MPI of opti-
mal condition by 0.183 from the initial condition. To check
the proximity of predicted results with the actual experimen-
tal results obtained by confirmation run, percentage error is
calculated and it is found to be 6.06 %, which is within the
minimum acceptable limits (around 10 %).
5 Multi-response optimization using Utility-Taguchi
approach
For solving the present problem of IC process using conven-
tional utility based Taguchi method, each of the QCs has been
assigned a weight of 0.3, assuming all of them are equally
important. The experimental results are then transformed into

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utility values, based on respective preference scales (Table 6) and A1 B3 C1 condition is optimal. From Table 16, it is found
and weight factors assigned to each QC. Since utility is a that all the process parameters namely, injection tempera-
higher-the-better type of characteristic, S/N ratios are calcu- ture, injection pressure and injection time are significant and
lated as follows: injection pressure is the most significant process parameter
⎛ ⎞ in influencing the features of the wax patterns. However, it
1 R
1 was found by trial experiments that variations in injection
(S/N)HB = −10 log ⎝ ⎠ (5)
R y2
j=1 j
temperature (other parameters fixed) led to more significant
changes in response values as compared to that of injection
The results of calculated utility values and the correspond- pressure, though injection pressure also affected the quality
ing S/N ratios are shown in Table 14. of the wax patterns.
ANOM and ANOVA of S/N ratios of utility values are fur-
nished in Tables 15 and 16 respectively. The response graph 6 Discussion
based on ANOM is shown in Fig. 10.
From Fig. 10, it can be clearly seen that the first level of It has been observed that the optimal setting predicted by
injection temperature (A1 ), third level of injection pressure Utility-Taguchi as well as Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi approaches
(B3 ) and first level of injection time (C1 ) would yield best is same i.e. A1 B3 C1. However, the most significant process
performance within the selected range of process parameters parameter in determining the quality of wax pattern is dif-
ferent for both cases. In Utility-Taguchi method, injection
Table 14 Utility values based on QCs (LS, SR and P)
pressure is the influential control factor, whereas injection
temperature is the most significant factor in case of Utility-
Trial no. Utility value Fuzzy-Taguchi approach. This disparity is due to the picking
R1 R2 R3 S/N ratio (dB) of random weights in the Utility-Taguchi method. If some
1 4.599 6.246 5.284 14.408 rules are followed for the selection of weights, then the usual
2 5.999 5.064 5.037 14.509 method may be opted as it is comparatively simpler than the
3 5.959 5.809 5.879 15.389
4 4.336 4.332 4.863 13.046
5 4.795 4.188 4.854 13.219
6 6.604 6.678 5.982 16.120
7 3.357 3.861 3.827 11.267
8 5.377 5.156 4.913 14.216
9 5.716 5.529 5.379 14.864

Table 15 ANOM of S/N ratios of utility values (LS, SR and P)

Symbol Average utility values
L1 L2 L3

A 14.769 14.129 13.449

B 12.907 13.925 15.458
C 14.915 14.140 13.292
L1, L2 and L3 represent levels 1, 2 and 3 respectively
Fig. 10 Response graph of S/N ratios of utility values

Table 16 Pooled ANOVA (LS,

SR and P) Pooled SS DOF V F SS’ P

A 2.54097 2 1.27048 8.309 2.23516 11.88

B 9.36694 2 4.68347 30.630 9.06113 48.16
SS sum of squares, DOF degree C 3.85039 2 1.92519 12.591 3.54458 18.84
of freedom, V variance, P Error 3.05803 20 0.15290 3.97544 21.13
percent contribution
Total 18.81632 26 18.81632 100
* Significant at 95 % CI

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proposed method. But, till now no rules have been formulated
by the researchers in choosing the weights in Utility-Taguchi
method and the selection of weights solely depends on the
decision maker. As a result, the optimal setting is expected to
vary from person to person leading to ambiguity. If the per-
son has prior experience in handling such problems, then the
accuracy level in the process optimization by Utility-Taguchi
method will be more. On the other hand, for a novice, it will
create uncertainty over the obtained condition. Ultimately, it
will lead to faulty results. However, the proposed method is
more accurate as there is no assumption in it and the result
obtained for the process is unique in itself. Moreover, any
number of quality characteristics can be optimized by this
method without any restrictions.
7 Conclusions
In the present analysis, Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based approach
has been proposed and employed for the multi-response
optimization of wax patterns in the IC process. The con-
trol factors are injection temperature, injection pressure and
injection time and the responses are linear shrinkage, surface
roughness and penetration, respectively. The main findings
of the research paper are as follows:
• Starch may be used as good and cheap substitute for filler
material in blending with investment casting waxes to
improve the performance of the wax patterns thus formed.
• The optimum condition obtained by the proposed method
as well as Utility-Taguchi method is A1 B3 C1 i.e. injection
temperature at level 1, injection pressure at level 3 and
injection time at level 1.
• In Utility-Fuzzy-Taguchi based approach and Utility-
Taguchi method, the most significant process parame-
ters are injection temperature and injection pressure,
respectively.
• It is found that the predicted results by the proposed
method complied well with the experimental results.
• In comparison with the initial condition, there is a signif-
icant increase (0.183) in MPI.
• Any number of quality characteristics may be considered
for optimization by the proposed method.
• There is no assumption in this method, so the accuracy
level of the proposed method is high as compared to
Utility-Taguchi method.
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