My recommendation is Super Decisions Software. It implements the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). You can enter your judgments, get results and perform sensitivity analysis on the results and in that way you can create and manage AHP model for your project.

Best regards.

Expert Choice and Super Decisions are the popular software packages for AHP adn ANP. However, it is based on simple rules and can be easily formulated in Excel as well.

There are several programs that can implement AHP, however, I caution you on the use of AHP due to known issues with the methodology. Unfortunately APH does not follow the rules of axiomatic decision theory, and thus can result in inconsistent preferences and orders when options added or removed. I would recommend the use of multi-objective decision analysis either using utility or value depending on your preference. Syncopation Software make a pretty good tool for MODA, and there are other packages out there that are wither open source (like packages for R) or require licenses.

Dear Clement

I would recommend to read Nicholas Shallcross and follow what he says.

If you are working with a complex project such as you mention, with probably many criteria, and many restrictions to criteria, forget AHP; it is useless for that.

By the way and for your information, you can't seek for optimality in multicriteria, be happy with a compromise solution, and you have many good methods for that, among them I would recommend PROMETHEE, but again, it depends of the complexity of your problem. If it is very complex probably not even PROMETHEE will be able to model your scenario. Use SIMUS

Dear Abdolkarim

What you say is true, the software follows the rules of AHP. Too bad that those rules are like flipping a coin...., even if you use them in Excel.

Thank you all for the prompt responses/feedback. Quite useful.

Hello, Clement

I am used to applying AHP through the Expert Choice Software trial version. It is a simple to use and very effective tool!

Good job!

Dear Alesandro

How do you know that AHP or any other is an effective tool?

If you call it effective because it 'easiness' I agree, although if you have many criteria it is not very convenient. In addition, if you add or delete a new criterion, which is very normal in real-world projects, you will have to trash your previous work and start all over again. Very convenient indeed! I really pity the guy who has 30 or 40 criteria.

By the way, it is very very seldom to find a project where the criteria are not related. If that is so, your AHP can't handle the problem; it is NOT my opinion, but it is what its creator, Dr. Tomas Saaty said.

If you are interested in getting a result based on invented instead of real data, go ahead, use AHP, but I don't think that you can call it effective.

Only one question. If another person tackles the same problem and gets different result, which of them is right, yours or that of your friend?

Since in AHP there is no reasoning, but only intuition, where is the effectiveness of the method?

Do you think that the stakeholders will be satisfied in learning that the evaluation of criteria depended only on your intuition? What do you think the stakeholders; reaction will be? Remember it is their assets your are playing with

Please, think

Hi, Mr Munier!

Thanks for you analyze!

First, it is natural to clarify that AHP as well as other management tools are not universally applicable to all situations! However, in professional experiences it has been shown to be highly effective in terms of decision support. Obviously, developing a matrix with 40 criteria is more expensive than a matrix with 4. My suggestion when using the Expert Choice trial version is that it optimizes the application of the AHP by indicating, during the parity judgments, the index of inconsistency of the answers . In this way, the researcher has feedback on the validity of the instrument. I invite you to redo your reflection in a specific way, instead of a generic one!

Greetings!!!

Dear Alesandro

Thank you for your answer

You are right, no MCDM method can be probably applied to all situations. The problem with AHP is that other than simple personal problems, which can be modelled as a hierarchy, most real-world problems do not follow a hierarchical structure. Probably, you did not know that.

Yes, I agree that AHP is useful for support in trivial problems , if we ignore some characteristics of the method that works more as a lottery than a scientific method, by using the pair-wise comparison, where there no values to compare.

Expert Choice may be an excellent software, but it can't produce an optimal solution. No MCDM software is able to produce optimality, simply because criterial may be contradictory.

If one criterion calls for maximizing benefits and another for minimizing cost, it is one or the other, or an intermediate solution, which is what all MCDM methods do, and which is called Compromise Solution. AHP is still worse because the maximization and minimization concepts, do no exist in the method, as do not exist either the concept of resources.

May I remind you that the index of inconsistency refers to the DM preferences NOT to the project? Where is the relationship between both?

In addition, consistency can be achieved by the DM negating what he said before and with all honesty regarding preferences, since it has to adjust them to what a formula says?

Don't you think that this process is abnormal? Are we being directed by a machine or do we have to follow our own concepts?

The researcher may have a feedback, but not from the instrument, but from his own preferences. As a matter of fact, do you know why you need to have an inconsistency < than 10%? It is because if not, you can't apply the Eigenvalue method which is the heart of AHP.

Do you really think that I am not specific? I am giving you the reasons, rational and mathematically for my rejection of the AHP

I would very much like to know which are yours.

In your activity, do you think that the management of public programs is a lineal, vertical activity? If you have to plan garbage recycling, do you think that it is lineal and that the different activities are not related? It is your field, please think about it.

Dear Ana Majstorovic

Do you really believe that you can manage an oil and gas project, normally complex, by your personal judgements?

Just a simple question, do you think that production of different products, as gasoline, gas oil, Diesel oil and gas, and the equilibrium between production, storage and distribution, is a matter of preferences?

What happens if you produce gasoline and don't have where storage it?

This is the problem with AHP. It makes people think that they can solve complex scenarios using preferences

Thank you very much for your dedication, Mr Munier! I will think about it! Respectfully,

Alessandro.

Thanks to you Alessandro for your contribution and willingness to discuss a subject, which is really the objective of this forum

I wish more people could follow your example. It is the only way from which all of us can learn from others

Certainly, Mr. Munier! I recognize how much I still have to learn and finding experienced people who are willing to contribute along the way is currently scarce! I will appropriate your considerations!

Success!

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