AHP Articles – Page 3

AHP-OS New Release with simplified project administration

Based on feedback from users, I just released a major update of BPMSG’s AHP online software AHP-OS with simplified menu structure and additional functionality. Starting the program as registered and logged-in user, the project session table is displayed, showing your projects.

You can open one of your projects, either using a click on the session code in the project table, or selecting the session code from the session administration menu:

This will bring you to the project summary page, showing

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AHP Group Consensus Indicator – how to understand and interpret?

BPMSG’s AHP excel template and AHP online software AHP-OS can be used for group decision making by asking several participants to give their inputs to a project in form of pairwise comparisons. Aggregation of individual judgments (AIJ) is done by calculating the geometric mean of the elements of all decision matrices using this consolidated decision matrix to derive the group priorities.

AHP consensus indicator

In [1] I proposed an AHP group consensus indicator to quantify the consensus of the group, i.e. to have an estimate of the agreement on the outcoming priorities between participants. This indicator ranges from 0% to 100%. Zero percent corresponds to no consensus at all, 100% to full consensus. This indicator is derived from the concept of diversity based on Shannon alpha and beta entropy, as described in [2]. It is a measure of homogeneity of priorities between the participants and can also be interpreted as a measure of overlap between priorities of the group members.

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The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) – Is it old and outdated?

This was a question in researchgate.net, and the answer of Prof. Saaty – the creator of the method – is of course: “The AHP is the only accurate and rigorous mathematical way known for the measurement on intangibles. It is not going to get old for a long time.“, with a lot of answers from others following.

When it comes to AHP, it seems the scientific world is still divided in opponents and advocates of the method.

I answered with the statistic of my website: BPMSG has more than 4000 users of the online software AHP-OS, 600 of them active users with 1000 projects and more than 3500 decision makers. My AHP excel template reached nearly 21 thousand downloads. It clearly shows that the method is not outdated.

As a reply Nolberto wrote:

“No, I don´t think that AHP is outdated, but the fact that over than 1000 projects have been developed using AHP does not mean that their results are correct (which is impossible to check), or that the method is sound (which is easily challenged)… “

Here my answer:

yes, I agree, the numbers only show that AHP is not outdated (which was the original question). They don’t show, whether the results are correct or incorrect, but they also do not show whether the users did or did not realise the method’s drawbacks and limitations.

For me, as a practitioner, AHP is one of the supporting tools in decision making. The intention of a tool is what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a lever intends to lift. It is what they are made for.

From my users feedback I sometimes get the impression that some of them expect a decision making support tool to make the decision for them, and this is not what it is made for.

In my practical applications AHP helped me and the teams a lot to gain a better insight into a decision problem, to separate important from less important criteria and to achieve a group consensus and agreement how to tackle a problem or proceed with a project. Probably, this could be achieved with other tools too, but as you say, AHP is simple, understandable and easy.

For sure, real world problems are complex. Therefore they have to be broken down and simplified, to be handled with the method, and I agree, over-simplification can be dangerous. On the other hand, what other approach than the break down of complex problems into digestable pieces is possible?

Finally, it’s not the tool producing the decision, but the humans behind it. They will be accountable for the decision, and it’s their responsibility to find the appropriate model of a decision problem and the right balance between rational and non-rational arguments and potential consequences of their decision.

Let me know your opinion!

AHP-OS News March 2017

I received some feedback about session timeout and expired session errors. I have now extended the session timeout to 45 min. After 45 minutes of inactivity (no refresh of html pages, click on menu botton, etc.) the session expires and session data are lost. Kindly feedback, if you still face a problem.

AHP-OS can handle multibyte characters (Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.) Unfortunately, the bar chart of priorities on the group result page cannot handle these characters; the annotation of the axis will not be readable. I am working on a solution.

When doing a pairwise comparison – leaving all comparisons at the default value of 1 (equal importance) – criteria will get equal priorities. I implemented a confirmation message box: Are you sure to leave all comparisons at equal importance? This was done in order to avoid unintential submission of the default values.

AHP-OS and Farsi

Thanks to the feedback of a user from Iran, I found out that AHP-OS is working with RTL fonts like Farsi. It is important to add the semicolon to the right end of a node definition, and use latin punctuation marks, for example:

کاربری: مسکونی , تجاری , اداری ;

A simple decision hierarchy example looks like here:

farsi

Unfortunately, I am not able to check for a hierarchy with more than one level. If anyone could provide a 2 level hierarchy, I would appreciate. Arabic fonts should work too; kindly contact me, if you have an example.

AHP Online Software CSV Data Export

AHP-OS allows for downloading your project data as a comma separated value text file. The following menus include a csv download key:

Hierarchy Input Menu – download the AHP hierarchy
Group Result Menu – download resulting priorities and consolidated (aggregated) decision matrix
Project Data Menu – download decision matrices for all individual participants

Depending on your regional settings of your PC, for each download you can select the decimal point or decimal comma as decimal separator.

Text encoding of the CVS file is UTF-8. If you are using country specific characters and Windows Excel, you can convert from UTF-8 to ANSI. Open the CSV file with notepad, and save as a new file with Encoding set to ANSI.

AHP Online Software – Decision Matrices – Update 2016-11-02

With the latest update of my AHP-OS online software you can now view and download the decision matrices of all participant. The group result menu was extended by a selection View Input Data:

From there you reach the Project Detailed Input page, which shows the decision matrix for each individual participant and all nodes of the hierarchy:

projectinputdata

The project data menu has the button to download the data in csv format:

The csv file contains the basic project data – Session Code, Project Name, Project description, Author, Date, Type of evaluation, Number of Participants – as well as all input decision matrices sorted by participant and nodes (categories of the hierarchy) or criteria for alternative evaluation.

With the Back link you can go back to the Group Result Page.

AHP Online Software – Latest Update 2016-10-29

Based on the request from some users I have modified the result display of my AHP-OS online software. Beside the resulting priorities it is now possible to see the underlying consolidated decision matrix, which results from the aggregation of individual judgments (AIJ) using the geometric mean.

Decision Hierarchies

For decision hierarchies the result page shows the resulting local and global priorities (overall result) in hierarchical form, and the global priorities in descending order in a bar graph.

Then, in a breakdown by nodes, consolidated priorities, consolidated decision matrix and the priorities of individual participants are shown:

ahp-result
As in this example, the consolidated matrix for one participant is the same as the AHP decision matrix.

Alternative Evaluation

For alternative evaluation the breakdown is done by criteria. It shows the consolidated preferences for all alternatives with respect to each of the criteria:

ahp-result1

In this example the House A from the alternative houses A, B, C has the best match with respect to the criterion “Size”.

Outlook

I am now working on the extension to let you download the complete set of input values, i.e. all underlying decision matrices, to excel. In the current version only the resulting AHP priorities are available.

AHP Frequently Asked Questions

Over the year I receive many questions about AHP, my AHP excel template and my AHP online Software. Here a selection of frequently asked questions:

General Questions

Q: I have 15 criteria and 20 alternatives, can you extend your template/software?
A: The excel template can handle up to 10 criteria, my online software is limited to 12 criteria (in one hierarchy level) and 10 alternatives. In principle it could be extended, but the limitation is inherit to the AHP method. Please read my explanations here.

Q: I have more than 10 alternatives, can I use AHP for priority evaluation of criteria and a different method for the evaluation of alternatives?
A: Yes, you can combine AHP for criteria evaluation with another method for alternative evaluation. Alternative evaluation could be done for example using a simple table with a yes/no or applicable/not applicable scale, or any other scale, e.g. Likert scale, how good the individual alternative matches the specific criterion.

Q: I have 150 participants, can I use your excel template/software?
A: My AHP excel template is limited to 20 inputs, my AHP online software can handle a (practically) unlimited number of participants. Use the AHP online software.

Q: How can I resolve the inconsistency (CR>0.1), when participants are done with their pairwise comparisons.
A: Once the pairwise comparison is done and submitted, data can not be changed and consistency ratio is what it is. Ask your decision makers to adjust their judgments in direction of the most consistent input during the pair-wise comparisons for the highlighted three most inconsistent comparisons. Please see also my posting here.

Q: Can I use the Likert scale instead of the AHP scale?
A: No, AHP is based on the rational scale 1/9 … 1 … 9. It cannot be replaced by the Likert scale.

Q: Do you support Fuzzy AHP?
A: No, I have made no provisions to support Fuzzy AHP, neither in Excel, nor in my online software.

Q: How is the computation done, where do I find the description and formulas?
A: Please download the manual for the excel template, or the description about the Software Implementation of AHP-OS.

Q: How can I cite your work, can you give me a reference?
A: Please cite my paper: Implementing the analytic hierarchy process as a standard method for multi-criteria decision making in corporate enterprises–a new AHP excel template with multiple inputs (Excel template) or my paper Software Implementation of AHP-OS.

AHP Excel template

Q: Can I extend the number of participants to more than 20?
A: Though it is possible in principle, the better way is to use my AHP online software with (practically) unlimited number of participants. I will not do a further extension of the template.

Q: Do you have a version of the Excel template w/o multiple inputs?
A: Yes, a simplified version is available on request from the author.

Q: How can I do alternative evaluation using your Excel template.
A: It is not possible. The template can only handle one category of a hierarchy and calculate the priority of one set of criteria.

AHP Online software

Q: If I have a group of decision makers, do they need to register for the online software?
A: No, they don’t need to register. As the owner of a project you get a link for group decision inputs. Simply send them the link, and they can start the pairwise comparisons.

Q: Can I erase/delete inputs from individual participants from the group results?
A: Yes, you can select and delete individual participants from a project .

Q: The alternative evaluation is not working?
A: Criteria evaluation (priorities) and alternative evaluation have to be handled as two different projects. Only when you have a decision hierarchy with completed comparisons and evaluated priorities, you can define the alternatives from the group result page clicking on Use consol. priorities. Define number and name of alternatives from there and save as new project. Hierarchy evaluation and alternative evaluation projects appear as type “H” for the first and type “A” for the latter in your project list.

Q: Can I get the source code of your online software?
A: Sorry, it is not an open source project.