Quantitative Analysis for Management, 13/e

M1.2 Analytic Hierarchy Process

In situations in which we can assign evaluations and weights to the various decision factors, the MFEP described previously works fine. In other cases, decision makers may have difficulties in accurately determining the various factor weights and evaluations. In such cases, the analytic hierarchy process can be used. This process was developed by Thomas L. Saaty and published in his 1980 book The Analytic Hierarchy Process.

The AHP uses pairwise comparisons.

The AHP involves pairwise comparisons. The decision maker starts by laying out the overall hierarchy of the decision. This hierarchy reveals the factors to be considered, as well as the various decision alternatives. Then a number of pairwise comparisons ...