Material selection systems and methods for quickly identifying which existing material best matches a desired set of properties are described so that product development time can be minimized. Users may input the properties they desire in a material, which properties they want searched and scored, the acceptable values of those properties, and a priority value for each property. Preliminary matching materials may be retrieved from a materials database, and an index value for each property value may be calculated. One of four fuzzy membership functions may then be utilized to calculate a scored property value for each property of each material. The scored property value may then be weighted to account for the priority value assigned to each property. The results may then be sorted in descending order based on their overall match scores, and output to the user so the best matching material(s) is readily identifiable by the user.