Analytic network process
The analytic network process (ANP) is a more general form of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) used in multi-criteria decision analysis.
AHP structures a decision problem into a hierarchy with a goal, decision criteria, and alternatives, while the ANP structures it as a network. Both then use a system of pairwise comparisons to measure the weights of the components of the structure, and finally to rank the alternatives in the decision.
In the AHP, each element in the hierarchy is considered to be independent of all the others—the decision criteria are considered as independent of one another, and the alternatives are considered as independent of the decision criteria. But in many real-world cases, there is interdependence among the items and the alternatives. ANP does not require independence among elements, so it can be used as an effective tool in these cases. For example, ANP allows for decision elements to "control" or "be controlled" by the varying levels, decision criteria or alternatives.
There are numerous practical uses of ANP, many of them involving complex decisions about benefits (B), opportunities (O), costs (C) and risks (R). About a hundred such uses are illustrated and discussed in The Encyclicon, a dictionary of decisions with dependence and feedback.[1]
ANP articles appear in academic journals dealing with the decision sciences; academics and practitioners meet biennally at the International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (ISAHP), which, despite its name, devotes considerable energy to the ANP.
References
- ^ Saaty, Thomas L. (2005). The Encyclicon: A Dictionary of Decisions with Dependence and Feedback Based on the Analytic Network Process. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: RWS Publications. ISBN 1-888603-05-4.
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- Thomas Saaty, Theory and Applications of the Analytical Network Process: Decision Making with Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks. Published 2005 by RWS Publications.