Development of a Multi-criteria Decision Model for Nigerian Refinery Bottlenecks

Production systems are continually surrounded by bottleneck problems that limit their overall performances. The petroleum industry today faces a lot of challenges which border on production bottlenecks that tend to limit production throughput and hence output. The purpose of this study is to provide a decision support strategy for refinery operators and mangers as well as other stakeholders. The multi-criteria models used were the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Test of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). A 9-point saaty scale and 10-point linguistic scale questionnaires were used to elicit responses from experts in the refinery. The statistical computations with the Multi-criteria Decision Model were carried out with the aid of (AHP -OS) BPMSG software on nine criteria which are bottleneck variables which impact on refinery operations and the comparison was made by nine decision makers who are refinery experts while TOPSIS was used for alternatives selection. The result of the AHP showed the contributing weights of individual criterion with “Government Interference” ranking first, exerting a weight of 19.84%. The result also generated a normalized total matrix which is approximately one (1), consistency index of 0.09694 and a consistency ratio of 0.06685 which is within acceptable limit and finally from TOPSIS modeling, “Denationalization” with the highest value of 0.7598 was found to be closest to the ideal solution for the optimal refinery performance. This study has developed a multi-criteria decision model for selecting the best alternative for optimal performance based on inputs from experts and this provides a veritable framework that serves as a decision support strategy for policy makers and stakeholders in the operations of the refinery.