Analytic Hierarchy Approach Research Articles

A Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Approach for Ranking and Prioritizing Sustainability Criteria and Indicators of Ecotourism Management

Ecotourism is an approach that should be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. For this reason, monitoring and evaluating the ecotourism destination is very important. A good practice is using an indicator system for planning and applying ecotourism models that emphasis on the sustainability approach. Ranking and prioritising of sustainabilitycriteria and indicators facilitates evaluating the situation of the destination by managers. The purpose of this study was to prioritizing and ranking the sustainability criteria and indicators for monitoring and assessment of ecotourism management in Penang National Park, Malaysia. A Fuzzy Analytic hierarchical process (FAHP) was used for prioritizing 9 criteria and 21 indicators from four dimensions of 'ecological', 'social', 'economic' and 'institutional' which obtained from a modified Delphi survey. Five experts from academic and non-academics had provided their judgment for the prioritizing process.Ecological dimension had the highest priority and institutional dimension had the least priority. Conservation of biodiversity, community economic improvement and visitor safety had the highest priorityin the ecological, economic and social dimensions respectively. Prioritised criteria and indicator in this study can help managers and stakeholders in monitoring decision making of different sustainability issues in the national park.

Delineation of groundwater potential zones in the crystalline basement terrain of SW-Nigeria: an integrated GIS and remote sensing approach

Due to complex and erratic nature of groundwater occurrences in crystalline basement terrains, groundwater development in form of boreholes/wells without the necessary pre-drilling hydrogeological investigations usually results in failure. Therefore, there is the need for adequate characterization of aquifers and delineation of groundwater potential zones in such crystalline basement setting. This study employed the integration of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) techniques to delineate groundwater potential zones in crystalline basement terrain of SW-Nigeria and validation of the result with existing borehole/well yield data. The study approach involved integration of nine different thematic layers (geology, rainfall geomorphology, soil, drainage density, lineament density, landuse, slope and drainage proximity) based on weights assignment and normalization with respect to the relative contribution of the different themes to groundwater occurrence using Saaty’s analytic hierarchy approach. Following weigh normalization and ranking, the thematic maps were integrated using ArcGIS 10.0 software to generate the overall groundwater potential map for the study area. The result revealed that the study area can be categorized into three different groundwater potential zones: high, medium and low. Greater portion of the study area (84,121.8 km2) representing about 78 % of the total area, fall within the medium groundwater potential zone which are generally underlain by medium-porphyritic granite, biotite-hornblende granite and granite gneiss bedrock settings. About 18,239.7 km2 (17 %) fall under high groundwater potential zone which are characterized by weathered/fractured quartzite, quartz-schist, amphibolite schist and phyllite bedrock settings. However, areas of low groundwater potentials constitute only 3 % (3,416.54 km2) of the total study area and are mostly underlain by migmatite, banded and augen gneiss bedrock settings. Subsequent validation with boreholes/well yield data revealed a good correlation with respect to the observed groundwater potential zonation. Wells/boreholes with yields greater than >150 m3/day are generally characteristic of areas with high groundwater potential while those with yields of 75–150 and <75 m3/day are typical of areas with medium and low groundwater potentials, respectively. The validation clearly highlights the efficacy of the integrated MCDA, RS and GIS methods employed in this study as useful modern approach for proper groundwater resources evaluation; providing quick prospective guides for groundwater exploration and exploitation in such crystalline basement settings.

Multi-criteria assessment and geostatistical approach for determination of rice growing suitability sites in Gokirmak catchment

Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieving optimum utilization of the available land resources. Lack of knowledge on best combination of factors that suit production of rice has contributed to the low production. The aim of this study were to determine the most suitable areas for rice crop (Oryza sativa) based on some physic-chemical properties of various alluvial soils in the Gokirmak catchment located on the Sinop-Boyabat district in the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey. To overcome the management and analysis of large volumes of spatial data for land suitability in this study, the geographic information system, geostatistic techniques and multi-criteria assessment using analytical hierarchy approach approaches were used to solve complex geographical problems and to reach reliable results for rice cultivation. According to results, 65.1 % of the study area has highly (S1) and moderately (S2) suitable whereas, 34.9 % of the study area has marginally suitable coded as S3 for rice cultivation.

Optimized Tourism Destination Selection Based on InLinPreRa

This research is regarding the optimized tourism destination selection when tourists choose tourist products or travel destinations. This study adopts the method of Incomplete Linguistic Preference Relations to simplify calculation and speed up the process of comparison and selection of alternative. This method considers only judgments, whereas the tradition analytic hierarchy approach (AHP) takes judgments in a preference matrix with n elements to establish a complete preference relation decision making matrix. According to the importance weights of evaluationcriteria, C was the optimize tourism destination.

Predicting Quantitative Functional Dependency Metric based upon the Interface Complexity Metric in Component based Software Systems: A New Approach

ABSTRACT One of the major issues in component based software systems structuring and quality prediction is the interdependencies of system components. This paper proposes a novel technique for determining the strength of functional coupling in component based software systems. Authors propose Strength of Functional Dependency (SFD) metric, which is based upon two new metrics Operational Coupling complexity Index (OCI), and Instance Coupling complexity Index (ICI). It allows us to quantify the functional dependencies, formed by different kinds of operations and instances between these components. Compared to other existing dependency metrics, which are often based on number of operations or instance variables between the components only, authors consider operational complexity and instance variables complexity as a measure to how strong this dependency is and therefore promote a more systematic approach to the reasoning about modularity in component based software systems. This paper can be divided broadly into two parts. The first part quantifies interface operations and instance variables. The quantification is performed by considering the number of input, output parameters and their types. Based upon these factors of operations and instance variables, authors used analytical hierarchy approach (AHP) to assign weights to these factors and outcomes OCI, ICI and SFD. The second part shows the experimentation and validation of the proposed metrics. The advantages of the proposed method are discussed as well through a case study in this paper.

Method of Safety Assessment for Airport Baggage Conveyer Belt

On the base of deciding the weight of factors influencing safety performance of baggage conveyer belt with analytic hierarchy approach, a quantitative safety assessment method based on safety checklist is developed for airport baggage conveyer belt. As an application, the safety performance of airport baggage conveyer belt of the Beijing branch of China Eastern Airlines located at Capital International Airport Terminal T2 is assessed and its quantitative value of safety performance was gotten. Through the safety assessment, the hazards and its degree of the equipment were revealed validly.

Quantitative Approaches for Project Prioritization: Case Study in Puget Sound, Washington

Transportation projects in major metropolitan regions can vary widely in the types of benefits that they provide and in the scales of those benefits. Travel forecasting models and related procedures can provide reasonable estimates of those benefits, and many benefits can be distilled into equivalent monetary benefits by the use of consumer surplus or other valuation approaches. In theory, those methods could also be used to prioritize projects for funding consideration. However, an approach that simply chooses projects that provide the greatest net economic benefits may not result in a mix of projects that most effectively accomplishes broad regional goals. This paper describes an approach to project prioritization that was developed to support stakeholder-based weighting of multiple goals and, for each goal, multiple measures. The approach uses the analytic hierarchy approach to develop weights for each goal and a conjoint-based method to estimate stakeholder weights for each measure. The approach was applied as part of Washington State's Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation 2040 process and achieved the goals in VISION 2040, the long-range land use plan. Weighting exercises were conducted with two stakeholder groups, and the results were applied to a set of proposed ferry, rail, highway, and local road projects. This paper describes the details of this case study and provides observations and conclusions from the work. The principal findings of the experiments were that statistically robust modeling conducted in real time during planning committee meetings can improve the transparency, equity, and collaboration of the project prioritization process.

SHM-based F-AHP bridge rating system with application to Tsing Ma Bridge

This paper aims at developing a structural health monitoring (SHM)-based bridge rating method for bridge inspection of long-span cable-supported bridges. The fuzzy based analytic hierarchy approach is employed, and the hierarchical structure for synthetic rating of each structural component of the bridge is proposed. The criticality and vulnerability analyses are performed largely based on the field measurement data from the SHM system installed in the bridge to offer relatively accurate condition evaluation of the bridge and to reduce uncertainties involved in the existing rating method. The procedures for determining relative weighs and fuzzy synthetic ratings for both criticality and vulnerability are then suggested. The fuzzy synthetic decisions for inspection are made in consideration of the synthetic ratings of all structural components. The SHM-based bridge rating method is finally applied to the Tsing Ma suspension bridge in Hong Kong as a case study. The results show that the proposed method is feasible and it can be used in practice for longspan cable-supported bridges with SHM system.

Landslide Susceptibility Analysis of Shiv-Khola Watershed, Darjiling: A Remote Sensing &amp; GIS Based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

In the present study, Remote Sensing Technique and GIS tools were used to prepare landslide susceptibility map of Shiv-khola watershed, one of the landslide prone part of Darjiling Himalaya, based on 9 landslide inducing parameters like lithology, slope gradient, slope aspect, slope curvature, drainage density, upslope contributing area, land use and land cover, road contributing area and settlement density applying Analytical Hierarchy Approach (AHA). In this approach, quantification of the factors was executed on priority basis by pair-wise comparison of the factors. Couple comparing matrix of the factors were being made with reasonable consistency for understanding relative dominance of the factors as well as for assigning weighted mean/prioritized factor rating value for each landslide triggering factors through arithmetic mean method using MATLAB Software. The factor maps/thematic data layers were generated with the help of SOI Topo-sheet, LIIS-III Satellite Image (IRS P6/Sensor-LISS-III, Path-107, Row-052, date-18/03/2010) by using Erdas Imagine 8.5, PCI Geomatica, Arc View and ARC GIS Software. Landslide frequency (%) for each class of all the thematic data layers was calculated to assign the class weight value/rank value. Then, weighted linear combination (WLC) model was implied to determine the landslide susceptibility coefficient value (LSCV or ‘M’) integrating factors weight and assigned class weight on GIS platform. Greater the value of M, higher is the propensity of landslide susceptibility over the space. Then Shivkhola watershed was classified into seven landslide susceptibility zones and the result was verified by ground truth assessment of existing landslide location where the classification accuracy was 92.86 and overall Kappa statistics was 0.8919.

Prequalification of Construction Contractor using a FAHP

Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) as multiple criteria decision making tools can be used in the problems with spatial nature like selection of construction contractor. In this study the application of AHP and its weakness and strength and ultimately the fuzzy modified analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) is proposed after the concept of fuzziness, uncertainty and vagueness. A triangular fuzzy umber is considered to form a fuzzy comparison matrix for criteria and alternatives (contractors). Consequently a fuzzy score matrix is prepared to obtained crisp score (defuzzified value), which ultimately gives overall ratting of the alternatives (contractors). The construction industry is an integral part of infrastructural development of country. The selection of appropriate construction contractor is the multi criteria decision making process. In the large project it is very difficult for the decision makers to analyze the capabilities of contractors against vagueness, imprecision, inexact and qualitative criteria. These criteria can be best expressed in the linguistic terms, which cab be translated into mathematical measures by using multi criteria decision making techniques (AHP and FSM). In this paper, we present an effort to provide application of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process in the selection of contractor. To develop a fuzzy analytical hierarchy approach to rank the suitable contractor for the housing project.

Selection of Simulation Software for Manufacturing System: Application of Analytical Hierarchy Approach in Multi Criteria Decision Making

Selection of Simulation Software for Manufacturing System: Application of Analytical Hierarchy Approach in Multi Criteria Decision Making

Application of activity-based costing to a land transportation company: A case study

Although there are many studies in the literature that explain modern costing approaches including activity-based costing (ABC), the number of studies that present real life applications is very few. This is especially true for logistics and transportation applications. One of the main difficulties in land transportation companies is to determine and evaluate true cost of their operations and services. If used and implemented properly, ABC can be very helpful for transportation companies to determine cost of their operations with higher correctness. In this paper, an application of ABC to a land transportation company that is located in Turkey is presented in detail. In order to improve the effectiveness of the ABC an integrated approach that combines ABC with business process modeling and analytical hierarchy approach is proposed. It is figured out that the proposed approach is quite effective in costing services of the land transportation company compared to the existing traditional costing system which is in use.

Information symmetry, quality perception, and market dynamics

PurposeThe paper aims to study market dynamics in the backdrop of information symmetry and quality perception. The position of high quality products (HQPs) in the market is a focus of this analysis. Also, an attempt is made to unfold the prevailing parametric relationships in the market of developed and developing nations.Design/methodology/approachRelated literature is reviewed and investigation is attempted into market dynamics. System dynamics is used for preliminary modelling and analysis. Simulation runs are carried out to assess the impact of company reputation and advertising on market parameters.FindingsBehaviours of market parameters are unraveled. From using correlation analysis and analytic hierarchy approach, the policy measures to improve the HQP position in the market are revealed.Research limitations/implicationsThe study of some aspects of market dynamics is attempted. Further, study and modelling are required to completely understand the market behaviour.Practical implicationsThe model has a practical relevance to implement quality perception enhancement by deciding on the policy mix.Originality/valueThis is a start for systems analysis of the market, which may offer a long‐term foundation to market dynamics.

Condition evaluation of existing reinforced concrete bridges using fuzzy based analytic hierarchy approach

There is an urgent need for a systematic methodology for condition assessment of the bridges because the old bridges of most of the countries are inadequate to carry current-day traffic and satisfy the present codal provisions and even in newer bridges, deterioration caused by unforeseen service condition and deferred maintenance is of great concern. In view of this, an attempt has been made in this study to develop a systematic procedure and formulations for condition evaluation of existing bridges using Analytic Hierarchy Process in a fuzzy environment. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is an efficient decision making tool for complicated problems with multiple evaluation criteria and uncertainty. Fuzzy logic approach has been used to take care of the uncertainties and imprecision in the bridge inspector's observations. In this paper, first, a methodology has been proposed for condition ranking of number of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges. Then, based on the results obtained from prioritization, rating of the most deserved bridge has been carried out using MADM based fuzzy logic. Computer programs have been developed based on the formulations presented in this paper for evaluating condition of existing bridges and the details are presented in the paper. The methodology and its application are demonstrated through a case study. This methodology would certainly help the engineers and policy makers concerned with bridge management to overcome the problem related to prioritization and decision on funding related to rehabilitation of bridges.

A hybrid approach for machining process optimization using multiple experts data

A hybrid analytical hierarchy approach, based on the expert ranking technique for machining process optimization and planning, is demonstrated in this article. The proposed approach enables the transfer of data, information, and knowledge between the different domains related to manufacturing processes. It also combines the characteristics of both the practical experiences of industrialists with the output of a mathematical analysis model, to obtain more accurate knowledge that can be used for weight ranking, and accordingly process optimization. This approach helps designers as well as manufacturing planners to make decisions concerning the selections of tools, machines, or machining processes based on different MULTI-expert views.

An analytic hierarchy approach to major league baseball offensive performance ratings

In recent years, the analysis of major league baseball players' statistics has been gaining much popularity, from baseball executives to the average fan. This paper analyzes the overall offensive performance of major league players through the combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the individual players' offensive statistics (batting average, runs, doubles, triples, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, and walks). Two new extensions to the absolute measurement mode of the AHP are introduced. First, range bases determined by the means and standard deviations of the different offensive statistics are applied as the alternative nodes. This permits the comparison of all major league players under the same criteria using statistics. Second, curve-fitting (second-order best fit) techniques are applied to the cut-off points for the synthesis to allow each data point (each player's individual offensive statistic) to receive a unique score in the AHP. The result is an overall score and ranking for each major league player according to his offensive performance during the 1991 major league baseball season.

An analytical hierarchy approach to facility layout

This paper presents a multi-criteria approach to the facility layout problem. The proposed constructive model, based on Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process, rates the set of pairs of potentially adjacent departments with respect to both qualitative and quantitative criteria. A computer program, incorporating a modified AHP portion and a layout construction module, was developed to construct departmental locations within a facility. The effectiveness of the approach and the computer program is illustrated with an example.

An analytic hierarchy approach to activity-based costing

This article presents an estimating model for determining how overhead costs might be allocated to different products. The model, which is loosely based on Activity-Based Costing (ABC), incorporates Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in estimating the overhead costs associated with each product. The proposed model uses overhead cost categories, and other cost-correlated information, as well as managers' subjective judgements for detail classification of overhead costs when “hard” data are not available. This model allows business to determine the benefits of ABC before actual implementation. A real-world example illustrates the model.

Analytic hierarchy approach to CRAF contract proposals

We develop an approach to analyze awarding of contracts by the Military Airlift Command (MAC) to the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet (CRAF) for CRAF enhancement contracts. The approach implements the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the priorities of the decision variables common to the aircraft being evaluated such as the aircraft's condition, capability, and commitment to service. As a result of this process, each aircraft will receive a weighted score which can be used to prioritize its projected contribution to the airlift goal of the military and the percent of peacetime business allocated by the Department of Defense.

Combining qualitative and quantitative factors—an analytic hierarchy approach

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides a general theory of measurement for expressing both tangible and intangible factors. In this paper, intangible or qualitative factors are looked upon as dimensions which we have not yet learned how to measure very well. Through a redundant paired-comparison process. AHP allows us to translate qualitative preferences into ratio scaled data. In addition, the structuring stage of AHP facilitates problem understanding.