Video – BPMSG

ISAHP 2013 – International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process

ISAHP-2013 The 12th International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process – Multi-criteria Decision Making – took place under the theme “Better world through better decision making” from June 23rd to 26th in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Organized by the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), scientists and experts from all continents presented and discussed the latest theoretical developments in AHP and its application in the areas of environment, transportation, CSR, healthcare, SCM, banking and finance, manufacturing, education, IT/IS and group decision making. After the official opening and a welcome speech by Prof. Thomas L. Saaty – connected via video from US – approx. 100 papers were presented in several parallel sessions. The successful meeting ended with a key note speech by Prof. William C. Wedley, “AHP/ANP – Before, Present and Beyond”, and two panel discussions, one about group decision making and the other about publishing AHP/ANP papers.

A half-day tour to interesting places in K.L and the following Gala Dinner with the award giving ceremony gave delegates opportunity for some relaxation and networking.

Many thanks to the organizers, have a look at some impression from the meeting in the video.

Your feedback is always welcome!
You might find my paper, presented on the ISAHP 2013, for download here.

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

Diversity as Business KPI – Alpha and Beta Diversity – Video

a-b-diversity The video explains partitioning of Shannon diversity into two independent components: alpha (within group) and beta (in between groups) diversity. It helps to understand beta diversity as a measure of variation between different samples of data distributions. Some practical applications in the field of business analysis are shown.

Enjoy watching!

Welcome to BPMSG – Dec 2012

Dear Friends, dear Visitors,

yesterday I realized 10000 visits on my website since April 2012, when I implemented the Piwik web statistics. Over the last couple of months the daily visitor frequency was actually increasing, doubling within the last 3 months. On my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/bpmsg I am now slowly reaching 100,000 video views.

So first to all of you a big thank you, showing interest in the topics of bpmsg.com, and especially to those of you, giving me feedback, as I can learn and progress from there. For me it also means to stay committed and keep the content interesting and updated.

The topic with the highest interest is AHP – the analytic hierarchy process, and many of you downloaded my AHP excel template. Actually, here I would really like even more feedback about your applications, just to get an idea, in what other areas my template is used. Some of them, as I received, are:

Asset management prioritisation
BPMSG AHP template as a teaching tool
Weights of textual elements that affect difficulty of a given text
Environmental quality
Threads to biodiversity
Green supply chain

In my last update of the template I improved the accuracy of calculation significantly, so please always use the latest version, and revisit the site from time to time, to get the latest update. Alternatively you might subscribe to the bpmsg newsfeed; the link is given in the footer of the page.

My latest topic “Diversity index as business KPI – the concept of diversity” seems also to gain some interest. My video on youtube got in a short time more viewers than the previous video about operational and strategic business performance. For me it was intersting to apply the diversity concept in business performance, as I haven’t seen this before, and the mathematical concept, to measure diversity of species in a habitat (biodiversity), is quite well established . I am thinking to publish a second video, showing more practical applications of the diversity concept in a business context.

After starting my youtube channel in 2009, I gained more and more experience in making videos. You can clearly see the difference, comparing one of my older videos with the latest ones. Now my camcorder – a Canon XA10 – is with me most of the time on my business trips or vacations. Therefore you also find some video travel impressions on this web site under the topic “others”. My last trip was to the Philippines showing the nice island of Bohol, as well as one of the world’s largest crater lakes on a lake on an island – Lake Taal.

Klaus Goepel,
Singapore, Dec 2012

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. Please give credit or a link to my site, if you use parts in your website or blog.

About the author

Practical Experience with Canon XA-10

Since a few months I use the Canon XA-10 camcorder to take the videos on this website, and when traveling. The video about the diversity index as business KPI, and the trip to the Philippines, visiting Bohol Island and Lake Taal, I shoot with the XA-10.

Overall I am quite o.k. with it, but a few details – like for example the tiny custom assignable buttons – are less satisfying. Now I am working on a review to share my experience. Stay tuned – and thanks for visiting.

Lake Taal -Philippines

Taal Lake is a freshwater lake in the province of Batangas, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The lake fills a large volcanic caldera formed by eruptions between 500,000 and 100,000 years ago. That crater lake is the world’s largest lake on an island in a lake on an island, and it in turn contains its own small island, Vulcan Point.

Enjoy Watching! If you like the video, leave a comment below.

Exploring Bohol, Philippines

Bohol is a smaller island in the island grouping of the Visayas, Philippines, a nice place to spend your holidays. Beside the famous chocolate hills and the trasier conservation area, the video shows Bolo knife forging, the Loboc river cruise with a local rondalla music group, dancing the traditional Tinikling dance, dolphin watching with a visit to Balicasag and Virgin island, as well as the Baclayon church, Tagbilaran market and the Hinigdanan cave in Dauis. Enjoy watching!

if you like the video, leave a comment below.

Canon XA-10 Video Camera – Damage or normal?

Just now I realized a problem with my (still) quite new Cannon XA-10 camera. Obvious under low light conditions and white colored background the corners getting dark – vignetting; you see it clearly on the second picture. Of course – lens hood removed, it’s medium focal length …
Question: damage under warranty or normal?

Result from several visits and discussions with the Canon Service center in Singapore:

It is a limitation of the camera. (I would call it a design problem). Workaround: use manual focus & switch image stabilizer off (if possible use a tripod).

Diversity Index as Busines Performance Indicator – The Concept of Diversity

A business relying on a single type of product or services can be highly risky. Any change in the market place – a change of customer behavior, a new competitor – might have a high impact on the business results. Diversification is an opportunity to spread and reduce the potential risks.

The mathematical concept of diversity has many applications, ranging from ecology over demography to information science. In the context of business performance diversity indices can be used as key performance indicators (KPIs) to analyze markets, define targets for diversification, and track the success of derived business actions.

Download Presentation Slides (pdf)

News from BPMSG

I’m really getting lazy …
No update of my web site since May 2012; page rank down from 3 to 2. What is going on?

It seems less questions coming up regarding my AHP excel template, though the number of downloads is quite stable. I am still curious to know about your applications; so please kindly feedback, if you are using the template for your study or work.

In between I upgraded my video equipment, using a Canon XA10 video camera and Adobe Premier Elements for editing. I produced a couple of videos for work and on holidays. Very satisfied with the results, brilliant quality in HD. Hopefully I will find some time to share my experience here or on my Youtube channel, so just stay connected.

Thanks so far!

Klaus

September 2012

P.S. Update Nov 8th, 2012 – Now having problems with my XA-10 Camcorder