Microsoft Excel as a Tool for Solving Multicriteria Decision Problems

Abstract

The main goal of every agent is to make a good decision. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is frequently used approach for solving decision making problems. There exists wide range of software programs utilizing that approach. Main disadvantage of those software products is that they are commercial and relatively expensive and thus it prevents them to be used by small companies, students or researchers.This contribution introduces a Microsoft Excel add-in called DAME – Decision Analysis Module for Excel. Comparing to other computer programs DAME is free, can work with scenarios or multiple decision makers, allows for easy manipulation with data, utilizes capabilities of Microsoft Excel and displays all intermediate calculations. Decision makers can structure their decision models into three levels – scenarios/users, criteria and variants. Elements on all three levels can be evaluated either by direct values or pair-wise comparisons. For each pair-wise comparison matrix there is calculated an inconsistency index. There are provided three different methods for the evaluation of the weights of criteria, the variants as well as the scenarios/users – Saaty's Method, Geometric Mean Method and Fuller's Triangle Method. Multiplicative and additive syntheses are supported. All calculations are instant so users can easily see what happen if anything is modified. Bar chart is used for final ordering representation. The proposed software package is demonstrated on couple of illustrating examples of real life decision problems.