The analytic hierarchy process (AHP), developed at the Wharton School of Business by Thomas Saaty1, allows decision makers to model a complex problem in a hierarchical structure showing the relationships of the goal, objectives (criteria), sub-objectives, and alternatives.
AHP allows for the application of data, experience, insight, and intuition in a logical and thorough way. AHP enables decision-makers to derive ratio scale priorities or weights as opposed to arbitrarily assigning them. In so doing, AHP not only supports decision-makers by enabling them to structure complexity and exercise judgment, but allows them to incorporate both objective and subjective considerations in the decision process2. AHP is a compensatory decision methodology because alternatives that are deficient with respect to one or more objectives can compensate by their performance with respect to other objectives. AHP is composed of several previously existing but unassociated concepts and techniques such as hierarchical structuring of complexity, pairwise comparisons, redundant judgments, an eigenvector3 method for deriving weights, and consistency considerations.Although each of these concepts and techniques were useful in and of themselves, Saaty’s synergistic combination of the concepts and techniques (along with some new developments) produced a process whose power is indeed far more than the sum of its parts.
Posted in: 
