Analytical hierarchy process: revolution and evolution

• Published in: Annals of operations research Vol. 326; no. 2; pp. 879 - 907
• Main Authors: Tavana, Madjid, Soltanifar, Mehdi, Santos-Arteaga, Francisco J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.07.2023; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Acceptability; Analysis; Analytic hierarchy process; Analytical hierarchy process; Business and Management; Combinatorics; Decision making; Evolution; Hierarchies; Multiple criteria decision making; Multiple criterion; Operations research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Original Research; Pairwise comparison; Theory of Computation; Weighting methods; United States; Decision support systems; Analytical hierarchy process multi-criteria decision-making; Pairwise comparison; Weighting methods; Consistency
• ISSN: 0254-5330; 1572-9338
• DOI: 10.1007/s10479-021-04432-2

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.