Non-discriminating criteria in the AHP: removal and rank reversal
✍ Scribed by Diederik J. D. Wijnmalen; William C. Wedley
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 121 KB
- Volume
- 15
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1057-9214
- DOI
- 10.1002/mcda.430
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
A non‐discriminating criterion is defined as a criterion where the decision‐maker is indifferent among the alternatives. One would therefore expect the final rank order of the alternatives not to be affected by removing it. A previously published paper by Finan and Hurley (Comput. Oper. Res. 2002; 29: 1025–1030) showed that in the analytic hierarchy process removing such a criterion from a multilevel hierarchy can reverse rank. In this paper, we offer an explanation of this particular rank reversal phenomenon and show how it can be avoided. We do this by taking into account that there is a link between the normalization and weighting processes, which suggests adjusting appropriate weights when removing criteria. Further, we discuss whether a non‐discriminating criterion should be removed in the first place. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.