The aim of this book is to provide the reader with a critical guide to AHP. In this book, the AHP method is considered primarily as a mathematical technique supporting the decision-making process. This method provides a convenient and versatile framework for modelling multi-criteria decision problems, evaluating alternatives and deriving final priorities. Rather than imposing a correct decision, AHP allows the user to create a ranking of alternatives, then choose the one which is the best (or among the best). At the core of AHP is a pairwise comparisons (PC) method. This is an old technique known in various forms since at least the Middle Ages.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been one of the foremost mathematical methods for decision making with multiple criteria and has been widely studied in the operations research literature as well as applied to solve countless real-world problems. This book is meant to introduce and strengthen the readers’ knowledge of the AHP, no matter how familiar they may be with the topic. This book provides a concise, yet self-contained, introduction to the AHP that uses a novel and more pedagogical approach. It begins with an introduction to the principles of the AHP, covering the critical points of the method, as well as some of its applications. Next, the book explores further aspects of the method, including the derivation of the priority vector, the estimation of inconsistency, and the use of AHP for group decisions. Each of these is introduced by relaxing initial assumptions. Furthermore, this booklet covers extensions of AHP, which are typically neglected in elementary expositions of the methods. Such extensions concern different numerical representations of preferences and the interval and fuzzy representations of preferences to account for uncertainty. During the whole exposition, an eye is kept on the most recent developments of the method.

This book provides a practical explanation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and its implementation in a decision support system to determine the scholarship recipients in a university. The discussion in this book is presented step-by-step, gradually, so that it will help readers understand every concept and stage of the AHP method and its implementation in decision support systems. This book is suitable for students, scholars, and researchers who want to implement the AHP method to build decision support systems using Python GUI and MySQL. The discussion in this book will provide readers with an understanding of the AHP method and how it works. Readers will be guided through each step of determining priority order using the AHP method through a case study accompanied by mathematical calculations. In addition, readers will also be guided step-by-step in implementing the AHP method in a decision support system to determine the scholarship recipients using Python GUI and MySQL. Readers will be guided step-by-step in designing a decision support system and realizing each design made using Python GUI and MySQL. The ultimate goal of this book is to enable readers to build a decision support system application independently by applying the AHP method to determine the scholarship recipients in a college using Python GUI and MySQL.

Management science is a di scipl ine dedicated to the development of techniques that enable decision makers to cope with the increasing complexity of our world. The early burst of excitement which was spawned by the development and successful applications of linear programming to problems in both the public and private sectors has challenged researchers to develop even more sophisticated methods to deal with the complex nature of decision making. Sophistication, however, does not always trans 1 ate into more complex mathematics. Professor Thomas L. Saaty was working for the U. S. Defense Department and for the U. S. Department of State in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In these positions, Professor Saaty was exposed to some of the most complex decisions facing the world: arms control, the Middle East problem, and the development of a transport system for a Third World country. While having made major contributions to numerous areas of mathematics and the theory of operations research, he soon realized that one did not need complex mathematics to come to grips with these decision problems, just the right mathematics! Thus, Professor Saaty set out to develop a mathematically-based technique for analyzing complex situations which was sophisticated in its simplicity. This technique became known as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and has become very successful in helping decision makers to structure and analyze a wide range of problems.

Analytic Hierarchy Process is one of the most widely known and applied multi-criteria decision-making methodologies worldwide. Its potential to analyze complex decision-making problems is enormous. This makes the methodology a very flexible "tool" that can be applied in various scenarios (social, engineering, economic, political, environmental, location, market share, etc.). The idea of the book is to present examples and case studies based on a rigorous scientific approach to Analytic Hierarchy Process. This book is intended to be a useful resource for anyone who deals with this issue.

This book is a comprehensive summary, primarily of the author's own thinking and research, about the Analytic Hierarchy Process and decision making. It includes advanced mathematical theory and diverse applications. Fundamentals of Decision Making has all the latest theoretical developments in the AHP and new theoretical material not published elsewhere. We consider this book to be the replacement for the original book on the subject, The Analytic Hierarchy Process that was published by McGraw Hill Publishers, New York.

The fourth volume on Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for information fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics. The contributions (see List of Articles published in this book, at the end of the volume) have been published or presented after disseminating the third volume (2009, http://fs.gallup.unm.edu/DSmT-book3.pdf) ininternational conferences, seminars, workshops and journals.

The fourth volume on Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for information fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics. The contributions have been published or presented after disseminating the third volume (2009, http://fs.gallup.unm.edu/DSmT-book3.pdf) in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals.

Models, Methods, Concepts and Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process is a volume dedicated to selected applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) focused on three themes: economics, the social sciences, and the linking of measurement with human values. (1) The AHP offers economists a substantially different approach to dealing with economic problems through ratio scales. The main mathematical models on which economics has based its quantitative thinking up to now are utility theory, which uses interval scales, and linear programming. We hope that the variety of examples included here can perhaps stimulate researchers in economics to try applying this new approach. (2) The second theme is concerned with the social sciences. The AHP offers psychologists and political scientists the methodology to quantify and derive measurements for intangibles. We hope that the examples included in this book will encourage them to examine the methods of AHP in terms of the problems they seek to solve. (3) The third theme is concerned with providing people in the physical and engineering sciences with a quantitative method to link hard measurement to human values. In such a process one needs to interpret what the measurements mean. A number is useless until someone understands what it means. It can have different meanings in different problems. Ten dollars are plenty to satisfy one's hunger but are useless by themselves in buying a new car. Such measurements are only indicators of the state of a system, but do not relate to the values of the human observers of that system. AHP methods can help resolve the conflicts between hard measurement data and human values.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is an advanced technique that supports decision makers in structuring complex decisions, quantifying intangible factors, and evaluating choices in multiobjective decision situations. It is a comprehensive and rational decision-making framework that provides a powerful methodology for determining relative worth among a set of elements. AHP is especially suitable for complex decisions that involve the comparison of decision elements which are difficult to quantify. The AHP, and its more recent version the Analytic Network Process (ANP), were developed by Dr. Thomas Saaty and have been applied in a wide variety of decision situations in organizations worldwide. AHP is particularly applicable in managing software complexity, and in Quality Function Deployment (QFD), as presented in Chapter 11 of the book Design for Trustworthy Software. This short cut illustrates the application of AHP in prioritizing complex design issues. It also shows how AHP and its supporting software, Expert Choice (EC), can handle much higher levels of complexities accurately and expeditiously than the prioritization matrices introduced in Chapter 7 of Design for Trustworthy Software. In addition to solutions facilitated by EC, this short cut also illustrates two known approximations to AHP solutions using manual calculations. Manual calculations can be used to solve relatively less complex problems. They are presented in this short cut to illustrate the first principles and the steps involved in AHP. This short cut is a reproduction of Chapter 8 of the book Design for Trustworthy Software and introduces AHP with a simple example. It can be used either as a methodology in trustworthy software design process or as a standalone introductory presentation on AHP. This short cut should be of interest to software and quality professionals. In particular, it would be of value to the CMMI, Six Sigma, and DFSS communities worldwide, especially those who have acquired or plan to acquire Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, or similar competencies in various quality management disciplines. It should also be a useful resource for students and academicians of various programs at senior undergraduate and graduate levels, and for those preparing for ASQ's Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) examination. What This Short Cut Covers 3 Introduction 4 Prioritization, Complexity, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process 4 Multiobjective Decision-Making and AHP 5 Case Study 1 Solution Using Expert Choice 12 Approximations to AHP with Manual Calculations 22 Conclusion 33 Key Points 33 Additional Resources 34 Internet Exercises 34 Review Questions 34 Discussion Questions and Projects 35 Problems 36 Endnotes 45 What's in the Book Design for Trustworthy Software 47 About the Authors 52 The Design for Trustworthy Software Digital Short Cut Compilation 53