Group Prioritization in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) by an Improved Fuzzy Preference Programming Approach

The problem of comparison reference-point shifting (CRPS), which probably occurs in decision makers/experts´ (DMEs´) judgement matrices (JMs) of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), is pointed out, and the influence of CRPS on the estimates of decision-making priorities is analyzed. To solve the CRPS problem which probably exists in the group AHP, an improved fuzzy optimization approach of group prioritization is presented for the AHP group decision-making by adopting the technical strategy of adjusting individual JMs based on the JM whose CRPS degree is the lowest. This approach aims at reducing the CRPS influence as much as possible and at maximizing the overall group satisfaction with the group´s priorities estimates as well. Applied to a simulation example, the presented approach is shown to perform better in the group priority estimation than the group fuzzy preference programming method formerly provided in the AHP literature does.