The Analytic Network Process – Dependence and Feedback in Decision-Making

Author(s):  
Thomas L. Saaty

Simple multi-criteria decisions are made by deriving priorities of importance for the criteria in terms of a goal and of the alternatives in terms of the criteria. Often one also considers benefits, opportunities, costs and risks and their synthesis in an overall outcome. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with its independence assumptions, and its generalization to dependence among and within the clusters of a decision — the Analytic Network Process (ANP), are theories of prioritization and decision-making. Here we show how to derive priorities from pair-wise comparison judgments, give the fundamental scale for representing the judgments numerically and by way of validation illustrate its use with examples and then apply it to make a simple hierarchic decision in two ways: pair-wise comparisons of the alternatives and rating the alternatives with respect to an ideal. Network decisions are discussed and illustrated with market share examples. A mathematical appendix is also included.

Author(s):  
Birsen Karpak

This article discusses my reflections on Mathematical Principles of Decision Making by Thomas Saaty  (Saaty T. L., 2010). In this book, Saaty very clearly explains his Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) theory for measuring both tangible and intangible factors. Experts judgments are elicited about the dominance of a factor over another one via pairwise comparisons using an absolute scale and priorities of the factors are derived. The important concepts of the AHP such as compatibility index, validation, sensitivity analysis for testing the robustness of the priorities derived, and its generalization to structures with dependence and feedback, and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) are given. Extensions of the theory to complex decisions involving benefits, opportunities, costs and risks and applications to resource allocation and conflict resolution are included, as well as the generalization to continuous and time dependent judgments is also covered.https://doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v9i3.521  


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (06) ◽  
pp. 1263-1284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jih-Jeng Huang ◽  
Masahiro Inuiguchi

The analytic hierarchy/network process (analytic hierarchy process (AHP)/analytic network process (ANP)) became the most popular tool for weighting criteria in the field of multiple criteria analysis during the 1980s. However, these models often suffer from criticisms because of their theoretical and practical problems. In this paper, the diminishing utility decision model (DUDM) is proposed in order to retain the pros and avoid the cons of the AHP and ANP for weighting criteria. The DUDM integrates the AHP and the concept of diminishing marginal utility in order to model the main and interaction weights of criteria, respectively. From the results of the numerical examples, it can be seen that the proposed method can solve two major limitations of the ANP. First, the proposed method can significantly reduce the number of questions that are asked in the ANP. Second, the proposed method can ensure convergence in many situations and avoid the problem of the ANP with regard to the absorbing state.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 763-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Saeed Khademalhoseiny ◽  
Mozhgan Ahmadi Nadoushan ◽  
Hadi Radnezhad

For the selection of the suitable place for the construction of sanitary landfill and biogas plant in the city of Najaf Abad, this study used fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy analytic network process, and geographic information system. In this research, factors such as slope, aspect, geology, land use, biomass, and distance from groundwater, electricity network, protected areas, and roads were used as the most important criteria for site selection of biogas plant. The results of weighting and overlaying the maps of different criteria showed that based on the analytic network process, the best place selected for the establishment of biogas reactor was located in the southwest and based on analytic hierarchy process, the best places are located in the south and southwest of the study area. Suggested places, which are the best for the establishment of biogas plant, are located in barren lands of Najaf Abad. Moreover, according to the result, it is found that 10% and 11% of the study area are highly suitable based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process methods, respectively. The results showed that the usage of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy analytic network process as multi-criteria decision-making methods in combination with geographic information system are suitable for selecting the best place for landfill and biogas plant.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Janeš ◽  
Nina Begičević Ređep

The development and empirical verification of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model, using the multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) called the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the analytic network process (ANP), are the key issues of the presented research. The paper presents the methodology of the prioritization of the BSC goals with the AHP and ANP methods. Even though the prioritization of the goals is possible with both, findings from the empirical analysis showed that the ANP is more complementary with the BSC because of the influences among the goals in the BSC. The ANP supports the modelling of those influences (through dependencies) and the AHP does not. The paper discusses special situations in prioritizing the BSC goals (understanding the ANP from the perspective of the user and the BSC with strategic goals that do not directly influence any other strategic goal) and proposes solutions. Therefore, it can be asserted that introducing the ANP to implement the BSC and vice versa, improved the decision-making approach and the quality of the obtained results. The research was based on a case study of modelling the BSC for Ydria Motors LL (YM), a manufacturing company.


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