IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v49y2001i4p469-486.html

The Analytic Hierarchy Process---An Exposition

Author

Listed:
  • Ernest H. Forman

    (School of Business and Public Management, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052)

  • Saul I. Gass

    (Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

Abstract

This exposition on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has the following objectives: (1) to discuss why AHP is a general methodology for a wide variety of decision and other applications, (2) to present brief descriptions of successful applications of the AHP, and (3) to elaborate on academic discourses relevant to the efficacy and applicability of the AHP vis-a-vis competing methodologies. We discuss the three primary functions of the AHP: structuring complexity, measurement on a ratio scale, and synthesis, as well as the principles and axioms underlying these functions. Two detailed applications are presented in a linked document at http://mdm.gwu.edu/FormanGass.pdf .

Suggested Citation

  • Ernest H. Forman & Saul I. Gass, 2001. "The Analytic Hierarchy Process---An Exposition," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 469-486, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:469-486
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.49.4.469.11231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.49.4.469.11231
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.49.4.469.11231?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James S. Dyer, 1990. "Remarks on the Analytic Hierarchy Process," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 249-258, March.
    2. Richard M. Cyert & Herbert A. Simon & Donald B. Trow, 1956. "Observation of a Business Decision," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 237-237.
    3. Thomas L. Saaty, 1986. "Axiomatic Foundation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(7), pages 841-855, July.
    4. Fishburn, Peter C, 1991. "Nontransitive Preferences in Decision Theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 113-134, April.
    5. Saul I. Gass, 1983. "Feature Article—Decision-Aiding Models: Validation, Assessment, and Related Issues for Policy Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 603-631, August.
    6. Martin J. Osborne & Ariel Rubinstein, 1994. "A Course in Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650401, December.
    7. James S. Dyer, 1990. "A Clarification of "Remarks on the Analytic Hierarchy Process"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 274-275, March.
    8. Thomas L. Saaty, 1990. "An Exposition of the AHP in Reply to the Paper "Remarks on the Analytic Hierarchy Process"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 259-268, March.
    9. Huber, Joel & Payne, John W & Puto, Christopher, 1982. "Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(1), pages 90-98, June.
    10. Huber, Joel & Puto, Christopher, 1983. "Market Boundaries and Product Choice: Illustrating Attraction and Substitution Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(1), pages 31-44, June.
    11. Thomas L. Saaty, 1994. "How to Make a Decision: The Analytic Hierarchy Process," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 24(6), pages 19-43, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ardalan Bafahm & Minghe Sun, 2019. "Some Conflicting Results in the Analytic Hierarchy Process," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(02), pages 465-486, March.
    2. Saul I. Gass, 2005. "Model World: The Great Debate—MAUT Versus AHP," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 308-312, August.
    3. Michele Bernasconi & Christine Choirat & Raffaello Seri, 2010. "The Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Theory of Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 699-711, April.
    4. Jain, Bharat A. & Nag, Barin N., 1996. "A decision-support model for investment decisions in new ventures," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 473-486, May.
    5. Millet, Ido & Saaty, Thomas L., 2000. "On the relativity of relative measures - accommodating both rank preservation and rank reversals in the AHP," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 205-212, February.
    6. Stam, Antonie & Duarte Silva, A. Pedro, 2003. "On multiplicative priority rating methods for the AHP," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 92-108, February.
    7. James E. Smith & Detlof von Winterfeldt, 2004. "Anniversary Article: Decision Analysis in Management Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(5), pages 561-574, May.
    8. Bentes, Alexandre Veronese & Carneiro, Jorge & da Silva, Jorge Ferreira & Kimura, Herbert, 2012. "Multidimensional assessment of organizational performance: Integrating BSC and AHP," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(12), pages 1790-1799.
    9. Leung, Lawrence C. & Cao, Dong, 2001. "On the efficacy of modeling multi-attribute decision problems using AHP and Sinarchy," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 39-49, July.
    10. Mehrez, Abraham, 1997. "The interface between OR/MS and decision theory," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 38-47, May.
    11. M Tavana, 2006. "A priority assessment multi-criteria decision model for human spaceflight mission planning at NASA," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(10), pages 1197-1215, October.
    12. Schniederjans, Marc J. & Garvin, Tim, 1997. "Using the analytic hierarchy process and multi-objective programming for the selection of cost drivers in activity-based costing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 72-80, July.
    13. Linares, Pedro, 2009. "Are inconsistent decisions better? An experiment with pairwise comparisons," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 193(2), pages 492-498, March.
    14. Zanakis, Stelios H. & Solomon, Anthony & Wishart, Nicole & Dublish, Sandipa, 1998. "Multi-attribute decision making: A simulation comparison of select methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 507-529, June.
    15. Gomez-Limon, J.A. & Atance, I., 2004. "Identification of public objectives related to agricultural sector support," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 26(8-9), pages 1045-1071, December.
    16. Madjid Tavana & Mariya Sodenkamp & Leena Suhl, 2010. "A soft multi-criteria decision analysis model with application to the European Union enlargement," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 393-421, December.
    17. Hoene, Andreas & Jawale, Mandar & Neukirchen, Thomas & Bednorz, Nicole & Schulz, Holger & Hauser, Simon, 2019. "Bewertung von Technologielösungen für Automatisierung und Ergonomieunterstützung der Intralogistik," ild Schriftenreihe 64, FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management, Institut für Logistik- & Dienstleistungsmanagement (ild).
    18. Liu, Xianliang & Liu, Yunfei, 2024. "Sensitivity analysis of the parameters for preference functions and rank reversal analysis in the PROMETHEE II method," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    19. Shang, Jen & Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki, 1995. "A unified framework for the selection of a Flexible Manufacturing System," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 297-315, September.
    20. Joaquín Pérez, José L. Jimeno, Ethel Mokotoff, 2001. "Another potential strong shortcoming of AHP," Doctorado en Economía- documentos de trabajo 8/02, Programa de doctorado en Economía. Universidad de Alcalá., revised 01 Jun 2002.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:469-486. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.