Intuitionistic multiplicative analytic hierarchy process in group decision making

Abstract

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which analyzes complex decisions by organizing the problems into a multilayer hierarchic structure, is a simple yet popular decision technique used extensively in every decision field. But it is inadequate to handle the uncertain decision making problems. Taking advantage of intuitionistic multiplicative information in portraying the vagueness of problems with Saaty’s 1/9–9 scale, in this paper, we extend the intuitionistic multiplicative information into AHP to enhance the ability of AHP in tackling various decision making problems. We first verify that the intuitionistic multiplicative weighted geometric aggregation (IMWGA) operator has desirable characteristics to guarantee that the overall intuitionistic multiplicative preference relation (IMPR) is consistent when all individual IMPRs are consistent. Then, we provide a whole procedure of intuitionistic multiplicative analytic hierarchy process for solving group decision making problems, including adjusting the individual IMPRs, aggregating the individual IMPRs and deriving the priorities from the overall IMPR. Finally, we present an example concerning the performance assessments of the hydropower stations to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the group intuitionistic multiplicative analytic hierarchy process.