Analytical hierarchy process: revolution and evolution

• DOI: 10.1007/s10479-021-04432-2
• Publication Date: 2021-12-02T08:03:01Z
• Authors: Madjid Tavana; Mehdi Soltanifar; Francisco J. Sant...
• Keywords: Analytical hierarchy process multi-criteria decision-making; 330; 0211 other engineering and technologies; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; Business; Weighting methods; Consistency; 02 engineering and technology; Decision support systems; 650; Pairwise comparison

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a reliable, rigorous, and robust method for eliciting and quantifying subjective judgments in multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). Despite the many benefits, the complications of the pairwise comparison process and the limitations of consistency in AHP are challenges that have been the subject of extensive research. AHP revolutionized how we resolve complex decision problems and has evolved substantially over three decades. We recap this evolution by introducing five new hybrid methods that combine AHP with popular weighting methods in MCDM. The proposed methods are described and evaluated systematically by implementing a widely used example in the AHP literature. We show that (i) the hybrid methods proposed in this study require fewer expert judgments than AHP but deliver the same ranking, (ii) a higher degree of involvement in the hybrid voting AHP methods leads to higher acceptability of the results when experts are also the decision-makers, and (iii) experts are more motivated and attentive in methods requiring fewer pairwise comparisons and less interaction, resulting in a more efficient process and higher acceptability.