Synthesis of individual best local priority vectors in AHP-group decision making

An assessment of the individual judgments and AHP-produced priority vectors for involved decision-makers indicates that the individual consistencies of decision makers may vary significantly, thus making the final group decision less reliable. In this paper, an approach is proposed as to how to combine decision makers’ local priority vectors in AHP synthesis and reduce so-called group inconsistency. Instead of aggregating individual judgments (AIJ), or aggregating individually derived final priorities (AIP), we propose to perform an AHP synthesis of the best local priority vectors taken from the most consistent decision makers. The approach and related algorithm we label as MGPS after the key terms ‘multicriteria group prioritization synthesis.’ The concept is analogous to the one proposed by Srdjevic [1] for individual AHP applications where the best local priority vectors are selected based on the consistency performance of several of the most popular prioritization methods. Here, decision makers are combined instead of prioritization methods, and group context is fully implemented. After completing an evaluation of the decision makers inconsistencies in each node of the hierarchy, the selected best local priority vectors are synthesized in a standard manner, and the final solution is declared to be an AHP-group decision. Two numerical examples indicate that the developed approach and algorithm generate the final priorities of alternatives with the lowest overall inconsistency (in the multicriteria sense).     

Generating consensus priority point vectors: a logarithmic goal programming approach

The analytic hierarchy process (Saaty, The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning, Priority Setting, Resource Allocation, NewYork: McGraw-Hill 1980) is a popular technique for addressing multiple-criteria decision-making problems (MCDMs). Various techniques have been proposed for using the AHP in group situations. Fundamental to the AHP is the generation of priority point vectors from matrices of pairwise comparison data. In this paper, we present a logarithmic goal programming model for generating the ‘consensus’ priority point vector from the set of individual priority point vectors.Scope and purposeWithin modern organizations, multiple-criteria decision-making problems (MCDMs) often occur within a group context, and individual priorities for decision alternatives must be synthesized into a single set of priorities which represents the consensus opinion for the group. This requires a process for aggregating individual priorities into a set of group priorities. In this paper, we examine the use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) MCDM technique for the group situation, and present an approach for aggregating individual priorities into a set of group ‘consensus’ priorities.     

Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process: An integrated fuzzy logarithmic preference programming

This paper proposes a two-stage fuzzy logarithmic preference programming with multi-criteria decision-making, in order to derive the priorities of comparison matrices in the analytic hierarchy pprocess (AHP) and the analytic network process (ANP). The Fuzzy Preference Programming (FPP) proposed by Mikhailov and Singh [L. Mikhailov, M.G. Singh, Fuzzy assessment of priorities with application to competitive bidding, Journal of Decision Systems 8 (1999) 11–28] is suitable for deriving weights in interval or fuzzy comparison matrices, especially those displaying inconsistencies. However, the weakness of the FPP is that it obtains priorities of comparison matrices by additive constraints, and generates different priorities by processing upper and lower triangular judgments. In addition, the FPP solves the comparison matrix individually. By using multiplicative constraints, the method proposed in this paper can generate the same priorities from upper and lower triangular judgments with crisp, interval or fuzzy values. Our proposed method can solve all of the matrices simultaneously by multiple objective programming. Finally, five examples are demonstrated to show the proposed method in more detail.     

A linear programming method for generating the most favorable weights from a pairwise comparison matrix

This paper proposes a linear programming method for generating the most favorable weights (LP-GFW) from pairwise comparison matrices, which incorporates the variable weight concept of data envelopment analysis (DEA) into the priority scheme of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to generate the most favorable weights for the underlying criteria and alternatives on the basis of a crisp pairwise comparison matrix. The proposed LP-GFW method can generate precise weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices and approximate weights for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices, which are not too far from Saaty's principal right eigenvector weights. The issue of aggregation of local most favorable weights and rank preservation methods is also discussed. Four numerical examples are examined using the LP-GFW method to illustrate its potential applications and significant advantages over some existing priority methods.     

Applying fuzzy hierarchy multiple attributes to construct an expert decision making process

The main objective of this paper is to propose an approach within the AHP framework for tackling the uncertainty and imprecision of service evaluations during pre-negotiation stages, where the expert’s comparison judgments are represented as fuzzy triangular numbers. A fuzzy prioritization method, which derives crisp priorities from consistent and inconsistent fuzzy comparison matrices, is described. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP)-based decision-making method can provide decision makers or buyer a valuable reference for evaluating software quality. A case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Importantly, the proposed scheme can assist decision makers in assessing the feasibility of digital video recorder system to management public space, making it highly applicable for academic and commercial purposes.     

A linear programming approximation to the eigenvector method in the analytic hierarchy process

Eigenvector method (EM) is a well-known approach to deriving priorities from pairwise comparison matrices in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which requires the solution of a set of nonlinear eigenvalue equations. This paper proposes an approximate solution approach to the EM to facilitate its computation. We refer to the approach as a linear programming approximation to the EM, or LPAEM for short. As the name implies, the LPAEM simplifies the nonlinear eigenvalue equations as a linear programming for solution. It produces true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices. Numerical examples are examined to show the validity and effectiveness of the proposed LPAEM and its significant advantages over a recently developed linear programming method entitled LP-GW-AHP in rank preservation.     

A parallel approach to the analytic hierarchy process decision support tool

The Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding methods dedicated to discrete problems follow different philosophies and strategies for selecting, clustering or ranking alternatives. This work presents a tool using one such method—the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The Decision Maker (DM) can structure his criteria as a hierarchy tree having the alternatives as leaf nodes. The DM must then build matrices for each node by performing pairwise comparisons between its children. The AHP finds the weights of each child concerning the parent criterion by calculating the elements of the eigenvector corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue of the comparison matrix. Weights are then combined in order to obtain the influence of each alternative on the top of the hierarchy. A DM expects that a Decision Support Tool works faster than he/she does. In order to achieve speed a parallel approach was developed. Parallel implementations described in this work follow different message-passing strategies and capitalise on the fact that the vector of weights for each matrix can be calculated independently. The authors used a network of four Inmos Transputers. Research will focus on finding which implementation will run faster and how the DMs options affect the speedups obtainable.     

Railway station site selection using analytical hierarchy process and data envelopment analysis

This paper deals with the problem of finding the optimum site for a railway station for the city of Mashhad, northeast Iran, using the methods of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). The paper identifies a four-level hierarchy model for the railway station site-selection problem. The model uses four main criteria: (1) rail-related, (2) passenger services, (3) architecture and urbanism, and (4) economics. In addition, there are 26 subcriteria as well as five (potential) candidates or alternatives. Comparison matrices are used to obtain the local weights and priorities of the railway-station candidates. A DEA model is proposed to determine the optimum site for a railway station. It is shown that the local priorities (or weights) obtained from the AHP can be defined as the multiple outputs of a DEA model for finding the best site for a railway station.     

Aggregation of direct and indirect judgments in pairwise comparison matrices with a re-examination of the criticisms by Bana e Costa and Vansnick

In a recent paper by Bana e Costa and Vansnick [C.A. Bana e Costa, J.C. Vansnick, A critical analysis of the eigenvalue method used to derive priorities in AHP, European Journal of Operational Research 187 (3) (2008) 1422-1428], analytic hierarchy process (AHP), particularly its eigenvector method (EM) used for deriving priorities from pairwise comparison matrices, was criticized for the violation of a so-called condition of order preservation (COP). Due to this violation, the EM was considered to have a serious fundamental weakness which makes the use of AHP as a decision support tool very problematic. The consistency ratio (CR) index in the AHP was also criticized for its failure to act as an alert of this violation of COP. In this paper, we look into decision makers’ overall judgments which can be obtained through the aggregation of their direct and indirect judgments and then re-examine Bana e Costa and Vansnick’s numerical examples with a detailed analysis to show the invalidity of their criticisms.     

Bayesian revision of the individual pair-wise comparison matrices under consensus in AHP–GDM

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely used in group decision making (GDM). There are two traditional aggregation methods for the synthesis of group priorities in AHP–GDM: aggregation of the individual judgments (AIJ) and aggregation of the individual priorities (AIP). However, AIJ and AIP may be less reliable because of inconsistency of the individual pair-wise comparison matrices (PCMs) and deviation among decision makers. Based on multiplicative AHP model with lognormal errors, we propose a Bayesian revision method for improving the individual PCMs under the assumption that the consensus exists among decision makers, which is considered an aid to AIJ and AIP. In order to effectively deal with decision making involving multiple actors when using AHP as the methodological support, we revise the individual PCMs using the Bayesian revision method before using AIJ and AIP for the synthesis of group priorities. The Bayesian revision method not only makes full use of the prior distribution for parameters and sample information while complying with the Pareto principal of social choice theory, but also provides the reliable individual Bayesian PCMs for AIJ and AIP. Finally two numerical examples are examined to illustrate the applications and advantages of the Bayesian revision method.     

An integrated AHP–DEA methodology for bridge risk assessment

The traditional analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method can only compare a very limited number of decision alternatives, which is usually not more than 15. When there are hundreds or thousands of alternatives to be compared, the pairwise comparison manner provided by the traditional AHP is obviously infeasible. In this paper we propose an integrated AHP–DEA methodology to evaluate bridge risks of hundreds or thousands of bridge structures, based on which the maintenance priorities of the bridge structures can be decided. The proposed AHP–DEA methodology uses the AHP to determine the weights of criteria, linguistic terms such as High, Medium, Low and None to assess bridge risks under each criterion, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to determine the values of the linguistic terms, and the simple additive weighting (SAW) method to aggregate bridge risks under different criteria into an overall risk score for each bridge structure. The integrated AHP–DEA methodology is applicable to any number of decision alternatives and is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) in Multiple Attribute Decision-Making

The current study aims to present a new method called Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) in Multiple Attribute Decision-Making (MADM). This method can be used in individual or group decision-making (GDM). In the case of GDM, through this method, we first determine the experts and their priorities. The priority of experts may be determined based on their experience and/or knowledge. After prioritization of the experts, the attributes are prioritized by each expert. Meanwhile, each expert ranks the alternatives based on each attribute, and the sub-attributes if any. Ultimately, by solving the presented linear programming model of this method, the weights of the attributes, alternatives, experts, and sub-attributes would be obtained simultaneously. A significant advantage of the proposed method is that it does not make use of pairwise comparison matrix, decision-making matrix (no need for numerical input), normalization methods, averaging methods for aggregating the opinions of experts (in GDM) and linguistic variables. Another advantage of this method is the possibility for experts to only comment on the attributes and alternatives for which they have sufficient knowledge and experience. The validity of the proposed model has been evaluated using several group and individual instances. Finally, the proposed method has been compared with other methods such as AHP, BWM, TOPSIS, VIKOR, PROMETHEE and QUALIFLEX. Based on comparisons among the weights and ranks using Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients, the proposed method has an applicable performance compared with other methods.     

A common framework for deriving preference values from pairwise comparison matrices

Pairwise comparison is commonly used to estimate preference values of finite alternatives with respect to a given criterion. We discuss 18 estimating methods for deriving preference values from pairwise judgment matrices under a common framework of effectiveness: distance minimization and correctness in error free cases. We point out the importance of commensurate scales when aggregating all the columns of a judgment matrix and the desirability of weighting the columns according to the preference values. The common framework is useful in differentiating the strength and weakness of the estimated methods. Some comparison results of these 18 methods on two sets of judgment matrices with small and large errors are presented. We also give insight regarding the underlying mathematical structure of some of the methods.Scope and purposePairwise comparison is commonly used to estimate preference values of finite alternatives with respect to a given criterion. This is part of the model structure of the analytical hierarchy process, a widely used multicriteria decision-making methodology. The main difficulty is to reconcile the inevitable inconsistency of the pairwise comparison matrix elicited from the decision makers in real-world applications. We discuss 18 estimating methods for deriving preference values from pairwise judgment matrices under a common framework of effectiveness: the common concepts of minimizing aggregated deviation and correctness in error free cases. The common framework is useful in differentiating the strength and weakness of these methods. For each of these methods, we point out their individual strength in decisional effectiveness. Some comparison results of these 18 methods on two sets of judgment matrices with small and large errors are presented. We also give insight regarding the underlying mathematical structure of some of the methods. We recommend the simple geometric mean method with the stronger feature of distance minimization and the simple normalized column sum method that is based on the simple ideas of commensurate unit and column sum. These two methods have closed-form formulas for easy calculation and good performance on both sets of judgment matrices with small and large errors.     

An integrated logarithmic fuzzy preference programming based methodology for optimum maintenance strategies selection

Selecting optimum maintenance strategies plays a key role in saving cost, and improving the system reliability and availability. Analytic hierarchical process (AHP) is widely used for maintenance strategies selection in the Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) field. But the traditional or hybrid AHP methods either produce multiple, even conflict priority results, or have complicated algorithm structures which are unstable to obtain the optimum solution. Therefore, this paper proposes an integrated Logarithmic Fuzzy Preference Programming (LFPP) based methodology in AHP to solve the optimum maintenance strategies selection problem. The multiplicative constraints and deviation variables are applied instead of additive ones to utilize both qualitative and quantitative data, and process the upper and lower triangular fuzzy judgments to obtain the same priorities. The proposed methodology can produce the unique normalized optimal priority vector for fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices, and it is capable of processing all comparison matrices to obtain the global priorities simultaneously and directly in the form of super-matrix according to the different requirements and judgments of decision-makers. Finally, an example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed methodology.     

A hybrid approach to concept selection through fuzzy analytic network process

Evaluating conceptual design alternatives in a new product development (NPD) environment has been one of the most critical issues for many companies which try to survive in the fast-growing world markets. Therefore, most companies have used various methods to successfully carry out this difficult and time-consuming evaluation process. Of these methods, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely used in multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. But, in this study, we used analytical network process (ANP), a more general form of AHP, instead of AHP due to the fact that AHP cannot accommodate the variety of interactions, dependencies and feedback between higher and lower level elements. Furthermore, in some cases, due to the vagueness and uncertainty on the judgments of a decision-maker, the crisp pairwise comparison in the conventional ANP is insufficient and imprecise to capture the right judgments of the decision-maker. Therefore, a fuzzy logic is introduced in the pairwise comparison of ANP to make up for this deficiency in the conventional ANP, and is called as fuzzy ANP. In short, in this paper, a fuzzy ANP-based approach is proposed to evaluate a set of conceptual design alternatives developed in a NPD environment in order to reach to the best one satisfying both the needs and expectations of customers, and the engineering specifications of company. In addition, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.     

A combined fuzzy AHP-simulation approach to CAD software selection

In this paper, a combined approach, where the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and simulation come together, is presented to select the best computer-aided design (CAD) software out of the available options in the market. The fuzzy AHP is used due to the vagueness and uncertainty of the judgements of a decision maker(s), because the crisp pair-wise comparison in the conventional AHP seems to be insufficient and imprecise to capture the right judgements of the decision maker(s). In this study, first the fuzzy AHP is used to reduce a possible number of alternatives for the CAD system to an acceptable level for further study, simulation analysis. Secondly, a simulation generator as an integrated part of the fuzzy AHP is used to try the remaining alternatives, on the generated model of a real-life product organisation in which the final alternative will be used. The results of simulation experiments are obtained, and then evaluated to reach to the ultimate CAD alternative.     

Data envelopment analysis for weight derivation and aggregation in the analytic hierarchy process

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed in this paper to generate local weights of alternatives from pair-wise comparison judgment matrices used in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The underlying assumption behind the approach is explained, and some salient features are explored. It is proved that DEA correctly estimates the true weights when applied to a consistent matrix formed using a known set of weights. DEA is further proposed to aggregate the local weights of alternatives in terms of different criteria to compute final weights. It is proved further that the proposed approach, called DEAHP in this paper, does not suffer from rank reversal when an irrelevant alternative(s) is added or removed.     

Incomplete Fuzzy Preference Matrix and Its Application to Ranking of Alternatives

A fuzzy preference matrix is the result of pairwise comparison of a powerful method in multicriteria optimization. When comparing two elements, a decision maker assigns the value between 0 and 1 to any pair of alternatives representing the element of the fuzzy preference matrix. Here, we investigate relations between transitivity and consistency of fuzzy preference matrices and multiplicative preference ones. The obtained results are applied to situations where some elements of the fuzzy preference matrix are missing. We propose a new method for completing fuzzy matrix with missing elements called the extension of the fuzzy preference matrix. We investigate some important particular case of the fuzzy preference matrix with missing elements. Consequently, by the eigenvector of the transformed matrix we obtain the corresponding priority vector. Illustrative numerical examples are supplemented.     

Development of a decision-making strategy to improve the efficiency of BPR

To support the efficient appraisal of and selection from a list of generic business process improvement principles, this paper proposes a strategy for the implementation of business process redesign (BPR). Its backbone is formed by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) multicriteria method and our earlier research into the popularity and impact of a set of redesign “best practices”. Using AHP, we derive a classification of most suitable directions for a particular process to be redesigned. Criteria such as the popularity, the impact, the goals and the risks of BPR implementation are taken into account. A case study is included to demonstrate the method’s feasibility and effectiveness.     

The analytic hierarchy process: a note on an approach to sensitivity which preserves rank order

Within the framework of the AHP as it applies to multicriteria decisions, it is frequently the case that decision makers are certain about the rank order of the objects for a particular pairwise comparison matrix but uncertain about the precise numerical weights that the AHP produces for that matrix. This uncertainty translates directly into uncertainty about whether the best alternative obtained from the AHP is actually the best alternative. However, if the weights of an AHP pairwise comparison matrix can be varied in a way that preserves the rank order of the objects, and at the same time, this perturbation does not result in the best alternative changing, then the decision maker is typically much more confident about what the AHP recommends. In this paper, I detail a simple approach to sensitivity within the AHP which preserves the rank order of the objects.Scope and purposeIn the author's experience with AHP as a multicriteria decision tool, it is frequently the case that decision makers (DMs) are quite certain about the rank order of the objects for a particular pairwise comparison matrix (PCM) but uncertain about the precise numerical weights that the AHP produces for that matrix. This uncertainty translates directly into uncertainty about whether the best alternative obtained from the AHP is actually the best alternative. However, if the weights of a PCM can be varied in a way that preserves the rank order of the objects for that matrix, and at the same time, this perturbation does not result in the best alternative overall changing, then the DM is typically much more confident about what the AHP recommends. In this paper I detail such an approach to sensitivity for the AHP.