A modified procedure for synthesising ratio judgements in the analytic hierarchy process

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely applied to solve probl ems arising in group decision making, by synthesising different or conflict ing judgements. However, directly synthesising conflicting judgements by ca lculating the geometric mean of preference weights (ratios) in AHP may not reach consensus from all members in a decision making group, especially, wh en those members represent the stakeholders of the decision making problem. This study proposes a new method that uses the genetic algorithm and utili ty function to synthesise preference weights to prevent this fallacy occurr ing when implementing the classical AHP approach. Using the proposed method , the final decision can be achieved with only minimally-adjusted preferenc e weights.