A non-compensatory compromised approach in decision analysis is described within the context of the material selection of the bipolar plate of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell. ELECTRE IV, using embedded outranking relations, has been applied to determine the best compromised possible candidate material, considering all the performance indices including the cost criterion. This study also investigates the effect of replacing components of the selection parameters (i.e. design parameters) with performance indices to solve the same problem. The individual effect of the components of the performance indices on the ranking change in each possible candidate material is studied. It was shown that the ELECTRE IV lists candidate materials from best to worst, taking into account all the material selection criteria. The obtained results show good agreement with available reported results. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.