Editorials – Page 2

Welcome to BPMSG – Mar 2016

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

The analytic hierarchy process AHP remains the main topic of this website and continues to have the most visitors. From October 2015 to now I received quite a number of questions related to my AHP excel template and my AHP online software. Here some of the typical questions (FAQs):

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 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

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: 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: How is the computation done, where do I find the description and formulas?
A: Please download my paper.

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.

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.

A couple of months ago I added a Donation button to the website – see below. Unfortunately, only a very small number of users used it, a big Thank You to them! PLEASE, help to support this website with a small donation. I have no commercial interest, but spend a lot of time, sharing my knowledge for free, and I have running costs to keep the site alive. Thank you in advance!

For now, please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to leave a comment – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, March 2016

BPMSG stands for Business Performance Management Singapore. As of now, it is a non-commercial website, and information is shared for educational purposes. Please see licensing conditions and terms of use.

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – October 2015

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

it’s soon coming to five years that my webpage has been online, and things getting slowly a bit messy … There was a need to clean-up the pages, posts and directories, so that the necessary maintainance will take less time, and future updates are possible. As you should know, this project is done in my free time as a hobby, I still have a full-time job for another couple of years.

Unfortunatly, during the whole process, some links were broken and it will take time to repair. Sorry, when you experience missing images or a broken link. Just let me know using my contact page. I am still working on it and plan to simplify the navigation in order to make it easier for you to find relevant information.

AHP as one category, where you find information about the analytic hierarchy process, will stay in focus. From the start this was the nost frequently visited part of the site, and my AHP excel template slowly reaches 15 thousand (!) downloads. Under the category Articles you find posts about other topics, mainly the concept of diversity, as I was using it for different applications. All more personal related topics under the category Other will move to my new personal blog – Klaus & Lita – running on my own server with topics like multicopter, programming and – maybe – cooking in future.

For now, please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to leave a comment – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, October 2015

Please give credit or a link to my site, if you use parts in your work, or make a small donation to support my effort to maintain this website.

About the author

Welcome to Business Performance Management – Aug 2015

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

time for another update of my welcome page! Since Chinese New Year in February there have been only two minor updates of my AHP Excel template. On request of many users, it can now handle two criteria. Though there are still a few requests to increase the number of criteria to more than ten, I am not planning to extend the template, as too many pairwise comparisons have to be done, which will be troublesome for the decision makers. It is much better to further breakdown the hierarchy into additional categories.

My AHP online software seems to be quite stable. Beside the regular user administration, I didn’t put in more effort, and the number of active users varies between three and four hundred.

I still get regular feedback via the contact page. It seems that many of my visitors are students, using my tools in their thesis. Sometimes I am asked, whether it is allowed to use them, and the answer is “yes”. As long as you use the software and templates for non-commercial purposes, e.g. education or research, you are allowed to do so. But please give credit to the author, and make a reference to the source.

Since end of last year I started a new hobby, flying remote controlled multi-copter. The header picture of my blog shows the skyline of Singapore, taken with this type of aerial platform. It is a fascinating technology and a lot of fun. I managed to finish my first own-build project, as small miniquad, and also started to develop some simple formulas to estimate flight speed and rate of climb. More to come here!

For now, please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me comment – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, August 2015

BPMSG stands for Business Performance Management Singapore. As of now, it is a non-commercial website, and information is shared for educational purposes. Please see licensing conditions and terms of use.

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – February 2015

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

time for a short update on bpmsg.com. Firstly, I wish you a healthy and successful New Year 2015, and for all of you with Chinese background: Gong Xi Fa cai – 恭喜发财, the year of the sheep is coming.

As I had a lot of other activities over the last few months, I was not very active here on my blog here, but the daily number of visitors is still increasing, and I receive feedback and questions regularly, most often about AHP. Thanks for all your comments, and please continue to give me your suggestions and ideas. My AHP online software has now more than 300 registered and active users. Please take note that users, not active for more than three month, will receive an email notification to re-activate their account within two days, otherwise their account incl. all project data will be deleted.

The latest publications, using my AHP Excel template or online software, cover areas like productivity improvement, smart TV human computer interaction, building sustainability and others. I try to keep the list of references up-to-date. Please cite my paper here, if you use my tools and plan to publish your work, and let me know about it.

Surprisingly my post about the Synology DS1513+ network attached storage (NAS) got a lot of readers. Online security seems to be an issue, and making remote online access more secure is indeed an important topic. So I opend the comment field on this post for feedback and questions.

For now, please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me comment – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, February 2015

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – September 2014

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

After more than three months it is time for a short update on bpmsg.com. Things getting more quiet: less questions, less feedback, though the number of visitors remains constant with approximately 2000 per month, and the number of downloads of my AHP excel template is slowly approaching 12 Thousand. My AHP online software seems to be quite stable now. The latest correction was a small bug, using criteria names with more than 35 characters. Kindly let me know in case you experience any other problems, and be sure that I appreciate all feedback.

The last couple of weeks I was quite busy, integrating a network attached storage (NAS), the DS1513+ from Synology, into my network. It is always a challenge to protect your devices against external web attacks, so I had to learn a few new things about Linux, openSSL and VPN. But now it seems to be working, and I am able to run ‘my own cloud’ services, and access the station remotely, even through restrictive firewalls. In one of my next posts I will share my modifications and measures.

There are also a few new AHP applications I am working on. In my latest project I use AHP to determine criteria weights of a product market matrix for a portfolio analysis. The two axes of the matrix are market attractiveness and competitive position. An attractive market has high market entry barriers, high profitability, a large volume, a significant growth rate and established competitors, not fighting price wars. Your competitive position is characterized by your market share versus the strongest competitor’s market share, your market presence, the price flexibility, program quality and potential for innovation. Once the weights of these criteria are defined, you can map your product portfolio in the matrix, and use it to develop strategies to strengthen your future position in the markets.

For now, please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, September 2014

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – May 2014

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

The latest beta version of my AHP online software (AHP-OS) has now additional features to manage complete AHP projects. AHP stands for Analytic Hierarchy Process, and is a decision support tool. To use the full functionality, please register and log in; it’s all free.

You can store complete decision hierarchies, use them to estimate the weights of criteria and sub-criteria and evaluate up to seven decision alternatives.

AHP is also helpful to support group decision making; participants can input their individual judgments and a consolidated group result is calculated. I have prepared a practical example, where you can participate, input your judgments and view the overall group results and consensus. Just click on the link and try it out.

The development is still continuing. I am further optimizing the handling and plan to implement additional analysis, especially for group decision making. Bookmark the page and revisit from time to time to get the latest updates.

Now please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, May 2014

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – Feb 2014

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

the development of my AHP online software is still continuing. Most of the recent changes were structural, and not so obvious to users, as I use the software on two different platforms and in two different designs. On the entry page you will now find a short introduction to the analytic hierarchy process, and links to further examples and documentation. From there you can go to the online priority calculator, or the AHP online solution to handle complete projects.

Overall the functionality is complete and the program is stable. Except for group inputs, the priority calculator includes all functions of my AHP excel template. With the AHP online system you can even define complete AHP hierarchies and evaluate alternatives. For both programs the results can now be exported as csv files for further processing in spreadsheet programs in two versions: using either dot or comma as decimal separator.

The next big step would be the implementation of group decision making. My idea is to implement web sessions for different users on different computers, and an online consolidation of all judgments, to get the consolidated group result. This could be very useful when you are in a meeting and have group discussions, then all participant could do their judgment online, seeing the consolidated group result in real time.

It will still take some more time, so bookmark the page and revisit from time to time to get the latest updates.

Now please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, Feb 2014

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – Dec 2013

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

Season Greetings from Singapore!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Surprisingly the implementation of AHP as an online tool went smooth and faster than I expected. Now my AHP online calculator is live, and within a few weeks frequently used by many visitors. During its development I also found a way to show the “ideal” judgments in case of inconsistent inputs; so now it is easy to modify initial judgments in the right direction in order to improve consistency. A feature I also implemented in my last update of the AHP excel template.

In addition, I managed to come out with an AHP project tool, where you can define the hierarchy of your AHP projects, as well as do the calculation of global priorities and evaluation of alternatives. This was a bit tricky, as the hierarchy can vary widely from project to project, so I had to find a flexible way, how to input the hierarchy structure. It is done using plain text with a defined simple syntax for nodes and leafs of the hierarchy. Sounds more complicated as it is, so I published some examples, and I am sure you will find it easy to use.

I use the tool for my own projects, the latest one developing a decision tree for the evaluation of company internal IT projects. Using the hierarchy tool you can export your defined hierarchy structure as csv and use it in Excel for further calculations.

Now please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, Dec 2013

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – Oct 2013

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

Nearly half a year has passed since my last update in May on this page, and the year 2013 is soon coming to an end. In June, I had the opportunity to present my practical experience with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) on the International Symposium ISAHP 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You can download my paper here. It was interesting to meet the experts from around the world, dealing with decision making methods, and listening to some of their presentations. A short video shows my impressions of the meeting and the nice touristic spots in K.L.

I was invited to the panel discussion, and could discuss my newly introduced AHP consensus indicator for group decisions. It is based on the concept of diversity. Like AHP, diversity is a very interesting topic, as it can be applied in so many different areas. Originating from information theory (Shannon 1948), it became a well-established concept in ecology and economy. I used the principles to develop a key performance indicator (KPI), describing the diversification of businesses and the quality of growth. Feel free to watch my videos or read my posts on this blog.

What is coming next?

There will be one more video on my YouTube channel, showing the application of Shannon diversity to measure the quality of growth. Looking at diversity and growth over time we can display a growth trajectory of a company, giving a clear picture about the direction, where the company is heading.

The larger project will be the implementation of my AHP template as an AHP online tool. The idea is that you can input your criteria and do the pair-wise comparison online, to get as a result the calculated priorities. So at the moment I am busy to practice some web scripting and become more familiar with php. A first small exercise was my online diversity calculator.

Now please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback – it is always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,

Singapore, Oct 2013

About the author

Welcome to BPMSG – May 2013

Concepts, Methods and Tools to manage Business Performance

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

time for an update on my BPMSG welcome page! Being quite busy the last half year, I didn’t work so much on major articles or videos, but at least I tried to keep my site current with some regular updates.

Related to the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), you might find information about the consistency ratio (CR). CR is one of the most critical issue in the practical application of AHP, as it seems to be difficult for many decision makers to fulfill Saaty’s “ten-percent rule-of thumb”. The way out: either you accept higher ratios (up to 0.15 or even 0.2), modify the judgements in the pair-wise comparisons, or you use the balanced scale instead of the standard AHP 1 to 9 scale. All three can be done in my updated AHP template from Februar 2013.

As I received many requests to extend the number of participants to more than 10, here the detailed procedure, how you can do it by yourself. Extending the number of criteria beyond 10 is more complex and not recommended by me. If you actually have more than 10 criteria please try to group in sub-groups. At the moment I don’t have any planes to extend the number of criteria to more than ten.

I also started a new topic: Diversity. Triggered by some business related questions, I found out that the concept of diversity – as applied in ecology – is very universal, and can be applied in many business areas. You can watch my introduction as video:

Diversity as Business KPI – The Concept of Diversity, and
Diversity as Business KPI – Alpha and Beta Diversity.

I already applied the concept in several areas, and even developed a new consensus indicator for group decision making based on the partitioning of the Shannon entropy. A paper is submitted for the ISAHP conference in June, and after the event I will place a copy of the paper on my site for download.

For those of you, interested in the topic of diversity and the partitioning in alpha (within group) and beta (in-between group) components my free BPMSG Diversity Calculator could be a useful tool.

Now please enjoy your visit on the site and feel free to give me feedback –
it’s always appreciated.

Klaus D. Goepel,
Singapore, May 2013