APPLYING THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS (AHP) TO EXPERT DOCUMENTS

Abstract

This paper explores an innovative technique to elicit prioritization from expert documents using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Practitioners within domains that have a large quantity of expert literature can utilize these prior efforts to answer new questions. This method can solve some of the challenges of the AHP which include dealing with inconsistencies amplified by large numbers of options, locating experts with the availability and commitment to undergo an iterative opinion refinement process, and the speed of obtaining priorities. By extracting comparisons through rules applied to expert literature, this paper shows how prioritization for a number of options larger than 15 can be achieved using the AHP. Using the literature creation process as a means to gain consistency from a panel of experts, the extracted priorities are absolutely consistent. Further, the process can be accomplished without iterative engagement of experts which helps reduce time and cost. Overall, this unique application of the AHP provides those with access to a set of expert literature a method to quantify expert opinions in a consistent and cost-effective manner.