Polishing is a key manufacturing process which has become inevitable in many industries such as shipbuilding, aerospace, automobile and bio-medical sectors. The compliant polishing tools (CPTs) are commonly used in industries, and there are different variants of the compliant polishing tools such as disc, wheel or belt types. Initially in this dissertation, in order to reduce the ambiguity involved in tool selection, two multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDMs) methods are considered for a case study involving the selection of optimal polishing tools at different polishing stages. The CPTs are usually preferred to the rigid tools for the