Decision Support

A new data envelopment analysis method for priority determination

and group decision making in the analytic hierarchy process
q
Ying-Ming Wang
a,b,
*
, Kwai-Sang Chin
b
a
Institute of Soft Science, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, PR China
b
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
Received 23 May 2007; accepted 31 January 2008
Available online 9 February 2008
Abstract
The DEAHP method for weight deviation and aggregation in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been found awed and some-
times produces counterintuitive priority vectors for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices, which makes its application very restric-
tive. This paper proposes a new data envelopment analysis (DEA) method for priority determination in the AHP and extends it to the
group AHP situation. In this new DEA methodology, two specially constructed DEA models that dier from the DEAHP model are
used to derive the best local priorities from a pairwise comparison matrix or a group of pairwise comparison matrices no matter whether
they are perfectly consistent or inconsistent. The new DEA method produces true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison
matrices and the best local priorities that are logical and consistent with decision makers (DMs) subjective judgments for inconsistent
pairwise comparison matrices. In hierarchical structures, the new DEA method utilizes the simple additive weighting (SAW) method for
aggregation of the best local priorities without the need of normalization. Numerical examples are examined throughout the paper to
show the advantages of the new DEA methodology and its potential applications in both the AHP and group decision making.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Data envelopment analysis; Analytic hierarchy process; DEAHP; Group decision making; Multiple criteria decision making
1. Introduction
How to derive a priority vector from a pairwise comparison matrix has being an important research topic in the analytic
hierarchy process (AHP) and has been substantially investigated in the AHP literature. Apart from Saatys well-known
eigenvector method (EM) [10], quite a number of alternative approaches have been suggested such as the weighted
least-square method (WLSM) [3], the logarithmic least squares method (LLSM) [5], the geometric least squares method
(GLSM) [7], the fuzzy programming method (FPM) [8], the gradient eigenweight method (GEM) [4], and so on.
Recently, Ramanathan [9] developed a DEAHP method for weight derivation and weight aggregation in the AHP. The
DEAHP method views each criterion or alternative in a pairwise comparison matrix as a decision making entity, which is
referred to as decision making unit (DMU) in data envelopment analysis (DEA) [2], the row elements of the pairwise com-
parison matrix as the outputs of the DMUs, and uses a dummy input that has a value of one for all the DMUs to build an
input-oriented CCR model for each DMU to calculate its best possible relative eciency. The best relative eciencies are
0377-2217/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2008.01.049
q
The work described in this paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under the Grant No. 70771027, and also
supported by a Grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, under the Grant No. CityU 111906.
*
Corresponding author. Address: Institute of Soft Science, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, PR China. Tel.: +86 591 87893307; fax: +86 591
22866677.
E-mail address: msymwang@hotmail.com (Y.-M. Wang).
www.elsevier.com/locate/ejor
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
then served as the local priorities of the DMUs (decision criteria or alternatives). The DEAHP proved to be able to pro-
duce true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices and has been applied more recently to supplier
selection by Sevkli et al. [12]. However, the DEAHP method was also found to have some drawbacks, which were illus-
trated with numerical examples in Wang et al. [13]. The most signicant drawback is that there is no guarantee that the
DEAHP method can produce rational weight vectors for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices. Consider for example
the following pairwise comparison matrix:
A
1 4 3 1 3 4
1=4 1 7 3 1=5 1
1=3 1=7 1 1=5 1=5 1=6
1 1=3 5 1 1 1=3
1=3 5 5 1 1 3
1=4 1 6 3 1=3 1
_

_
_

_
;
which is inconsistent (CR = 0.229 > 0.1). For this inconsistent pairwise comparison matrix, the DEAHP produces the pri-
ority vector as (1, 1, 1/3, 1, 1, 1), which makes no sense and is obviously illogical, counterintuitive and unacceptable be-
cause the pairwise comparisons in the rst row of A clearly show that the rst criterion or alternative is more important
than others and cannot be as important as them. It is this aw that seriously restricts the applications of the DEAHP.
The DEAHP not only produces counterintuitive results for highly inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices, but may
also produce illogical results for those pairwise comparison matrices with satisfactory consistency, i.e. CR < 0.1. Consider
for example the following pairwise comparison matrix:
B
1 1=3 1=3 1 1=2
3 1 1=2 1=2 1
3 2 1 1=2 2
1 2 2 1 1
2 1 1=2 1 1
_

_
_

_
;
which has satisfactory and acceptable consistency (CR = 0.0999 < 0.1) and meets the requirement of CR < 0.1. The DEA-
HP, however, produces equal weights for all the ve decision criteria or alternatives in this matrix, i.e.
W

DEAHP
1; 1; 1; 1; 1
T
. Such a priority vector also makes no sense and needs to be rejected.
In this paper, we propose a new DEA methodology to overcome the drawbacks of the DEAHP and extend it to the
group AHP situation. The new DEA methodology employs two specially constructed DEA models to derive the best local
priority vector from a pairwise comparison matrix or the best local priority vectors from a group of pairwise comparison
matrices no matter whether they are perfectly consistent or inconsistent.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we briey review the DEAHP and in Section 3 we propose the new DEA
methodology for priority determination in the AHP. We then extend the new DEA methodology to the group AHP sit-
uation in Section 4. The aggregation approach of local priorities in a hierarchical structure is provided in Section 5. Com-
parisons between the new DEA methodology and the DEAHP are discussed in Section 6. The paper is concluded in Section
7. Numerical examples are provided and examined throughout the paper.
2. DEAHP
Let
A a
ij

nn

a
11
a
12
a
1n
a
21
a
22
a
2n
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
a
n1
a
n2
a
nn
_

_
_

_
1
be a pairwise comparison matrix with a
ii
= 1 and a
ji
= 1/a
ij
for j i and W = (w
1
, . . . , w
n
)
T
be its priority vector. The DEA-
HP views each row of the matrix A as a DMU, each column as an output and assumes a dummy input value of one for all
the DMUs. Each DMU has therefore n outputs and one dummy constant input, based on which the following input-ori-
ented CCR model [2] is constructed to estimate the local priorities (weights) of the pairwise comparison matrix A:
240 Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
Maximize w
0

n
j1
a
0j
v
j
; 2
Subject to
u
1
1;

n
j1
a
ij
v
j
u
1
6 0; i 1; . . . ; n;
u
1
; v
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n;
_

_
where DMU
0
represents the criterion or alternative under evaluation. The optimum objective function value of the above
model, w

0
, represents the DEA eciency of DMU
0
and is used as its local priority. LP model (2) is solved for all the DMUs
to obtain the local priority vector W

w

1
; . . . ; w

T
of the pairwise comparison matrix A. It has been proved [9] that the
DEAHP can derive true weights if A is perfectly consistent, that is, A meets the condition of a
ij
= a
ik
a
kj
for all
i, j, k = 1, . . . , n.
However, the previous example in Section 1 has clearly shown that the DEAHP, i.e. LP model (2), can sometimes produce
counterintuitive local priorities for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices. This makes its application unreliable.
In the next section, we will develop a new DEA methodology for priority determination in the AHP to overcome the
shortcomings of the DEAHP.
3. A new DEA model for priority derivation in the AHP
The DEAHP denes the eciency of each criterion or alternative as its local priority and leads to more than one cri-
terion or alternative being DEA ecient. Diering from the DEAHP, we view

n
j1
a
ij
v
j
as the score of the ith criterion or
alternative and denoted it by
s
i

n
j1
a
ij
v
j
; i 1; . . . ; n: 3
What we are concerned about is not the score of each criterion or alternative, but its relative score, which is dened as
w
i
s
i

n
k1
s
k
; i 1; . . . ; n
_
: 4
We view the relative score w
i
as the local priority of the ith criterion or alternative. Besides, by Saatys well-known EM [10]
it is known that s
i


n
j1
a
ij
v
j
Pnv
i
for i = 1, . . . , n with the equality holding only for perfectly consistent pairwise com-
parison matrices. Based on the above points of view, the new DEA model for local priority derivation in the AHP can be
formulated as
Maximize w
0
s
0

n
k1
s
k
_
; 5
Subject to
s
i


n
j1
a
ij
v
j
6 1; i 1; . . . ; n;
0 6 v
i
6 s
i
=n; i 1; . . . ; n;
_
_
_
where subscript zero represents the decision criterion or alternative under evaluation, namely, DMU
0
, and v
1
, . . . , v
n
are
decision variables.
Let
t
1

n
j1
sj

n
j1

n
k1
a
kj vj
;
z
j
tv
j
; j 1; . . . ; n:
_
6
Then, we have
w
i
s
i

n
k1
s
k


n
j1
a
ij
_
v
j

n
j1

n
k1
a
kj
_ _
v
j


n
j1
a
ij
z
j
_
;
s
i


n
j1
a
ij
v
j
1=t

n
j1
a
ij
z
j
w
i
=t; i 1; . . . ; n;

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
j
t

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
v
j
1:
_

_
7
Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250 241
In virtue of these transformations, model (5) can be equivalently converted into the linear programming (LP) below:
Maximize w
0

n
j1
a
0j
z
j
; 8
Subject to

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
j
1;
w
i


n
j1
a
ij
z
j
6 t; i 1; . . . ; n;
z
i

1
n
w
i
6 0; i 1; . . . ; n;
t; z
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n:
_

_
Since w
0
has nothing to do with t and what we are concerned about is the optimal value of w
0
rather than others, the con-
straints w
i


n
j1
a
ij
z
j
6 t for i = 1, . . . , n can therefore be removed from the above LP model (8) without impact on w
0
,
leading to a simplied LP model, as shown below
Maximize w
0

n
j1
a
0j
z
j
; 9
Subject to

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
j
1;

n
j1
a
ij
z
j
Pnz
i
; i 1; . . . ; n;
z
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n:
_

_
By solving the above LP model for each w
i
(i = 1, . . . , n), we will get the best local priorities of the n criteria or alternatives.
We refer to the method that uses the above LP model (9) for determination of the best local priorities from a pairwise com-
parison matrix as the DEA method to distinguish it from the DEAHP.
With regard to the LP model (9), we have the following theorems.
Theorem 1. LP model (9) produces true local priorities for any perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices.
Proof. Let A = (a
ij
)
nn
be a perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrix. Then, it can be characterized by a normalized
priority vector W

w

1
; . . . ; w

T
as A w

i
=w

nn
, where the priority vector W

w

1
; . . . ; w

T
satises

n
i1
w

i
1.
From a
ij
w

i
=w

j
for i,j = 1, . . . , n, it can be derived that

n
i1
a
ij


n
i1
w

i
=w

j
1=w

j
for j = 1, . . . , n. That is
w

j
1=

n
i1
a
ij
for j = 1, . . . , n.
From the rst constraint of model (9), we have

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
j

n
j1

n
i1
w

i
w

j
_ _ _ _
z
j

n
i1
w

i
_ _

n
j1
z
j
w

j
_ _

n
j1
z
j
w

j
_ _
1:
Accordingly, the objective function value of model (9) can be expressed as
w
0

n
j1
a
0j
z
j

n
j1
w

0
w

j
_ _
z
j
w

n
j1
z
j
w

j
_ _
w

0
;
which has nothing to do with the values of decision variable z
j
(j = 1, . . . , n). Such an identity w
0
w

0
holds for any DMU,
i.e. for all i = 1, . . . , n. This completes the proof. h
Theorem 2. Let A = (a
ij
)
nn
be a pairwise comparison matrix and W

w

1
; . . . ; w

T
be its best local priority vector deter-
mined by LP model (9). Then there exists

n
i1
w

i
P1.
Proof. Let z
i
j
j 1; . . . ; n be the optimal solution to model (9) with w
i
("i 2 {1, . . . , n}) as its objective function. Then,
there exists

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
i
j
1 for any i 2 {1, . . . , n}. Since z
i
j
j 1; . . . ; n are only optimal to model (9) which has w
i
as its objective function, they are not optimal but feasible solutions to the model with other w
k
(k i) as the objective func-
tion. Therefore, we have
w

n
j1
a
kj
z
k
j
P

n
j1
a
kj
z
i
j
; k 1; . . . ; n; ki;
242 Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
based on which it can be derived that

n
i1
w

i
w

n
k1;ki
w

n
j1
a
ij
z
i
j

n
k1;ki

n
j1
a
kj
z
k
j
P

n
j1
a
ij
z
i
j

n
k1;ki

n
j1
a
kj
z
i
j

n
j1

n
k1
a
kj
_ _
z
i
j

n
j1

n
i1
a
ij
_ _
z
i
j
1:
This completes the proof. h
We now turn to the numerical examples discussed in Section 1. For pairwise comparison matrix A, we have the best
local priority vector W

DEA
0:3558; 0:1650; 0:0402; 0:1471; 0:2661; 0:1628
T
by solving LP model (9) for each of the six
criteria or alternatives, respectively. For an illustration, the LP model for w
1
is provided as follows:
Maximize w
1
z
1
4z
2
3z
3
z
4
3z
5
4z
6
Subject to
19
6
z
1

241
21
z
2
27z
3

46
5
z
4

86
15
z
5

19
2
z
6
1;
z
1
4z
2
3z
3
z
4
3z
5
4z
6
P6z
1
;
1
4
z
1
z
2
7z
3
3z
4

1
5
z
5
z
6
P6z
2
;
1
3
z
1

1
7
z
2
z
3

1
5
z
4

1
5
z
5

1
6
z
6
P6z
3
;
z
1

1
3
z
2
5z
3
z
4
z
5

1
3
z
6
P6z
4
;
1
3
z
1
5z
2
5z
3
z
4
z
5
3z
6
P6z
5
;
1
4
z
1
z
2
6z
3
3z
4

1
3
z
5
z
6
P6z
6
;
z
1
; z
2
; z
3
; z
4
; z
5
; z
6
P0:
_

_
It is obvious that the local priority vector derived by LP model (9) makes sense and is logical. This shows a signicant
advantage of the proposed new DEA methodology over the DEAHP. If we normalize the above best local priority vector
W

DEA
to sum up to one, it is very interesting to observe that the normalized best local priority vector

W

DEA

0:3129; 0:1451; 0:0354; 0:1294; 0:2340; 0:1432
T
is very close to the priority vector W

EM
0:3208; 0:1395; 0:0348; 0:1285;
0:2374; 0:1391
T
obtained by Saatys eigenvector method. This shows that the proposed new DEA methodology achieves
similar local priorities to those by the EM, but the DEA methodology is formulated as an LP model that is much easier to
solve than any eigenvector model which is nonlinear in nature.
For pairwise comparison matrix B, by solving LP model (9) for each of the ve criteria or alternatives, respectively, it is
computed that W

DEA
0:1177; 0:1825; 0:2747; 0:2767; 0:1845
T
, which makes sense. After normalization it becomes

W

DEA
0:1136; 0:1761; 0:2651; 0:2671; 0:1781
T
, which is also very close to W

EM
0:1129; 0:1763; 0:2661; 0:2648;
0:1779
T
derived by Saatys eigenvector method, but the former appears more logical than the latter. This is because
the DEA methodology evaluates the local priority of C
4
(criterion 4 or alternative 4) to be slightly bigger than that of
C
3
(criterion 3 or alternative 3), which is consistent with the DMs subjective judgments b
34
= 1/2 and b
43
= 2 in matrix B.
4. DEA model for group decision making in the AHP
Let A
k
a
k
ij

nn
be a pairwise comparison matrix provided by the kth decision maker (DM
k
) (k = 1, . . . , m), h
k
> 0 be
its relative importance weight satisfying

m
k1
h
k
1, and s
k
i
(i = 1, . . . , n;k = 1, . . . , m) be the score of the ith criterion or
alternative generated from the kth pairwise comparison matrix, where m is the number of DMs for group decision making.
Then, we have
s
k
i

n
j1
a
k
ij
v
j
6 1; i 1; . . . ; n; k 1; . . . ; m: 10
The overall score of each criterion or alternative can be expressed as
s
i

m
k1
h
k
s
k
i

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
ij
_ _
v
j
; i 1; . . . ; n: 11
The local priorities of the n criteria or alternatives can be dened as
w
i

s
i

n
l1
s
l

m
k1
h
k
s
k
i

n
l1

m
k1
h
k
s
k
l
_ _

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
ij
_ _
v
j

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
v
j
; i 1; . . . ; n: 12
Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250 243
Based on the above denition and the constraint v
j
6 s
j
/n for j = 1, . . . , n, the priority model can be formulated as
Maximize w
0

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
0j
_ _
v
j

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
v
j
; 13
Subject to
s
k
i


n
j1
a
k
ij
v
j
6 1; i 1; . . . ; n; k 1; . . . ; m;
0 6 v
j
6
1
n

m
k1
h
k
s
k
j
; j 1; . . . ; n:
_

_
where subscript zero represents the decision criterion or alternative under evaluation, namely, DMU
0
, and v
1
, . . . , v
n
are
decision variables.
Let
t
1

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
vj
;
z
j
tv
j
; j 1; . . . ; n:
_
_
_
14
Then, we have
w
0


n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
0j
_ _
v
j

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
v
j


n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
0j
_ _
z
j
_
;
s
k
i


n
j1
a
k
ij
v
j
1=t

n
j1
a
k
ij
z
j
; i 1; . . . ; n;
z
j
tv
j
6
1
n

m
k1
h
k

n
l1
a
k
jl
z
l
_ _
; j 1; . . . ; n;

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
z
j
t

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
v
j
1:
_

_
15
In light of these transformations, model (13) can be equivalently changed into the following LP model:
Maximize w
0

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
0j
_ _
z
j
; 16
Subject to

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
z
j
1;
s
k
i


n
j1
a
k
ij
z
j
6 t; i 1; . . . ; n; k 1; . . . ; m;
z
j
6
1
n

m
k1
h
k
s
k
j
; j 1; . . . ; n;
t; z
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n:
_

_
Since w
0
has nothing to do with t and we are not concerned about the value of t but we are only concerned about the opti-
mal value of w
0
, the constraints s
k
i


n
j1
a
k
ij
z
j
6 t for i = 1, . . . , n can thus be removed from the above LP model (16). As
a result, (16) can be simplied as
Maximize w
0

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
0j
_ _
z
j
; 17
Subject to

n
j1

m
k1

n
l1
h
k
a
k
lj
_ _
z
j
1;

n
j1

m
k1
h
k
a
k
ij
_ _
z
j
Pnz
i
; i 1; . . . ; n;
z
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n:
_

_
244 Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
In particular, when m = 1, the above LP model is reduced to LP model (9). So, model (9) is a special case of the above LP
model for group decision making. By solving the above LP model for each w
i
(i = 1, . . . , n), we can obtain the best relative
local priorities of the n criteria or alternatives under group decision making.
Consider the following group decision making problem in the AHP: A top manager and three experts from three dif-
ferent departments are asked to make comparisons about the relative importance of ve decision criteria. The four pairwise
comparison matrices provided by the top manager and the three experts are as follows:
A
1

1 1 3 4 1
1 1 1 1=2 1=3
1=3 1 1 1=2 1=2
1=4 2 2 1 1=2
1 3 2 2 1
_

_
_

_
; A
2

1 8 1 2 2
1=8 1 1=8 1=3 1=5
1 8 1 2 2
1=2 3 1=2 1 1
1=2 5 1=2 1 1
_

_
_

_
;
A
3

1 8 1 1 1
1=8 1 1=8 1=5 1=8
1 8 1 2 1
1 5 1=2 1 1
1 8 1 1 1
_

_
_

_
; A
4

1 2 1 1 1
1=2 1 1=2 1 1
1 1 1 1=2 1
1 1 2 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
_

_
_

_
:
Suppose the relative importance weights of the four DMs are 50% for the top manager, 30%, 15%, and 5% for the three
experts, respectively, namely, h
1
= 50%, h
2
= 30%, h
3
= 15%, and h
4
= 5%. Then, by solving LP model (17) for each crite-
rion, we get the best local priorities shown in the 3rd row of Table 1. If a dierent weight is assumed for each of the four
DMs, then a dierent local priority vector can be derived by LP model (17). Table 1 shows the best local priority vectors
derived under dierent sets of the relative importance weights of the four DMs. Apparently, the DMs relative importance
weights have signicant impact on the local priorities of the ve decision criteria and should be determined very carefully.
5. Aggregation of the best local priorities
For a hierarchical structure in the AHP as shown in Fig. 1, suppose the best local priorities for both criteria and alter-
natives have all been derived by the DEA methodology (LP model (9) or (17)). Let w
1
, . . . , w
m
be the best local priorities of
the m decision criteria and w
1j
, . . . , w
nj
be the best local priorities of the n decision alternatives with respect to the jth cri-
terion (j = 1, . . . , m), which are shown in Table 2 and form a decision matrix in the terminology of multiple criteria decision
making (MCDM). Based upon the decision matrix in Table 2, the global priority of each decision alternative can be
computed using the simple additive weighting (SAW) method [6] in MCDM. The results are shown in the last column
Table 1
The best local priorities of ve decision criteria in a group decision making problem in the AHP
Relative importance weights of four decision makers (DMs) Local priorities
w
1
w
2
w
3
w
4
w
5
(50%, 30%, 15%, 5%) 0.3191 0.0935 0.2120 0.1716 0.2361
(50%, 16.7%, 16.7%, 16.7%) 0.3066 0.1039 0.1976 0.1821 0.2431
(25%, 25%, 25%, 25%) 0.2865 0.0882 0.2342 0.1886 0.2247
(1, 0, 0, 0) 0.3246 0.1395 0.1093 0.1650 0.2904
(0,1, 0, 0) 0.3197 0.0408 0.3197 0.1519 0.1680
(0, 0, 1, 0) 0.2444 0.0334 0.2831 0.1968 0.2444
(0, 0, 0, 1) 0.2242 0.1541 0.2028 0.2343 0.1949

Decision goal
Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion m
Alternative 1 Alternative 2 Alternative n
Fig. 1. A hierarchical structure by AHP decision making.
Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250 245
of Table 2. The problem is whether or not we need to normalize the best local priorities before aggregation. By Theorem 2
we know that they are not normalized.
In the traditional AHP, local priorities are always normalized so that they are summed to one. Belton and Gear [1] sug-
gested that local priorities should be normalized by dividing them by their maximum value rather than by their sum so that
the maximum local priority becomes equal to one. It was claimed that this normalization could avoid rank reversal phe-
nomenon. However, Saaty and Vargas [11] presented a counterexample to show that Belton and Gears normalization
method still caused the rank reversal problem. The DEAHP also normalizes local priorities to their maximum value by
restricting each priority to be less than or equal to one.
In our view, the purpose of normalization in MCDM is to eliminate the dimensions of dierent criteria or attributes and
make them comparable within the same range of variation such as [0, 1]. As far as the AHP is concerned, all decision cri-
teria and alternatives are evaluated using the 9-point scale and have therefore no the problem of dimensional units. The
best local priorities determined by DEA models (9) and (17) are all within the interval (0, 1). These two features make nor-
malization in fact not necessary for the best local priorities.
Since the best local priorities of decision criteria are not normalized, the global priorities in the last column of Table 2
may be bigger than one. In the case that there are more than three levels in a hierarchical structure, the global priorities in
Table 2 will serve as the assessment values of the n decision alternatives with respect to one criterion in a higher level. In this
case, the global priorities are all within the interval (0, m) and do not need normalization either.
Another reason that we suggest no normalization is because the misuse of normalization may cause wrong decisions to
be made. Consider the demonstrative example in Table 3, where alternative A has 20 apples and 5 oranges, while alterna-
tive B has 14 apples and 10 oranges. Suppose a DM likes apples and oranges equally well. Obviously, this DM will choose
alternative A as his/her best choice because it provides more fruits for him/her. However, if normalization is performed for
Table 2
Aggregation of the best local priorities
Alternative Criteria Global priorities
w
1
w
2
. . . w
m
A
1
w
11
w
12
. . . w
1m

m
j1
w
1j
w
j
A
2
w
21
w
22
. . . w
2m

m
j1
w
2j
w
j
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A
n
w
n1
w
n2
. . . w
nm

m
j1
w
nj
w
j
Table 3
Wrong decision by misuse of normalization
Alternatives Apple Orange Total value Rank
A 20 5 25 1
B 14 10 24 2
Normalization by the sum of each column
Alternatives Apple (1/2) Orange (1/2) Normalized total value Rank
A 10/17 1/3 47/102 2
B 7/17 2/3 55/102 1
Normalization by the maximum value of each column
Alternatives Apple (1) Orange (1) Normalized total value Rank
A 1 1/2 15/17 2
B 7/10 1 1 1
Search for President
for a University
Academic & Functional
Knowledge (C1)
Professional
Experience (C2)
Commitment
(C3)
Candidate 1 Candidate 2 Candidate 3
Personal
Attributes (C4)
Fig. 2. Hierarchy of searching for president for a University.
246 Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
this example, then alternative B will be wrongly selected, as shown in Table 3, where the gures in parentheses are the nor-
malized weights for apples and oranges.
As an illustration of the aggregation of the best local priorities without normalization, we examine a numerical example
in which the AHP was utilized to search for President for a university. The selection criteria considered by the search com-
mittee include Academic & Functional Knowledge (C
1
), Professional Experience (C
2
), Commitment (C
3
), and Personal Attri-
Table 4
Pairwise comparison matrices for four selection criteria and three candidates and their best local priorities determined by dierent methodologies
Criteria C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
Local priorities
DEAHP EM DEA method
A: Pairwise comparisons of four selection criteria with respect to decision goal
C
1
1 5 3 2 1 0.4500 0.4566
C
2
1/5 1 1/5 1/5 0.2 0.0586 0.0603
C
3
1/3 5 1 1/3 1 0.1709 0.1749
C
4
1/2 5 3 1 1 0.3205 0.3239
Consistency ratio (CR) = 0.0797
Candidates Candidate 1 Candidate 2 Candidate 3 Local priorities
DEAHP EM DEA method
B: Pairwise comparisons of three candidates with respect to criterion C
1
Candidate 1 1 3 2 1 0.5278 0.5294
Candidate 2 1/3 1 1/3 0.3333 0.1396 0.1404
Candidate 3 1/2 3 1 1 0.3325 0.3333
Consistency ratio (CR) = 0.0462
C: Pairwise comparisons of three candidates with respect to criterion C
2
Candidate 1 1 1/2 1/2 0.5 0.1958 0.1967
Candidate 2 2 1 1/2 1 0.3108 0.3117
Candidate 3 2 2 1 1 0.4934 0.4948
Consistency ratio (CR) = 0.0462
D: Pairwise comparisons of three candidates with respect to criterion C
3
Candidate 1 1 1/4 1 0.25 0.1667 0.1667
Candidate 2 4 1 4 1 0.6667 0.6667
Candidate 3 1 1/4 1 0.25 0.1667 0.1667
Consistency ratio (CR) = 0
E: Pairwise comparisons of three candidates with respect to criterion C
4
Candidate 1 1 2 2 1 0.4934 0.4948
Candidate 2 1/2 1 2 1 0.3108 0.3117
Candidate 3 1/2 1/2 1 0.5 0.1958 0.1967
Consistency ratio (CR) = 0.0462
Table 5
Aggregation of the best local priorities in Table 4
Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion 3 Criterion 4 Global priorities
Global priorities of three candidates with respect to decision goal by the DEAHP
Local weights of criteria 1 0.2 1 1
Candidate 1 1 0.5 0.25 1 0.928
Candidate 2 0.3333 1 1 1 1.000
Candidate 3 1 1 0.25 0.5 0.770
Global priorities of three candidates with respect to decision goal by the EM
Local weights of criteria 0.4500 0.0586 0.1709 0.3205
Candidate 1 0.5278 0.1958 0.1667 0.4934 0.4356
Candidate 2 0.1396 0.3108 0.6667 0.3108 0.2946
Candidate 3 0.3325 0.4934 0.1667 0.1958 0.2698
Global priorities of three candidates with respect to decision goal by the new DEA methodology
Local weights of criteria 0.4566 0.0603 0.1749 0.3239
Candidate 1 0.5294 0.1967 0.1667 0.4948 0.4430
Candidate 2 0.1404 0.3117 0.6667 0.3117 0.3005
Candidate 3 0.3333 0.4948 0.1667 0.1967 0.2749
Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250 247
butes (C
4
). The ideal candidate should possess as much of the above attributes as possible. After a long period of search,
three potential candidates were shortlisted for committee interview. Fig. 2 shows the hierarchical structure for this selection
decision-making problem, which is in nature a group decision making, but for comparison with the results of the DEAHP
and the EM, the search committee was assumed to have achieved a consensus on all the pairwise comparison matrices in
Table 4.
From the local priorities in Table 4 it is observed that the relative importance of the selection criteria C
3
and C
4
has been
exaggerated by the DEAHP, which evaluates them to be as important as the selection criterion C
1
. Such an evaluation
cannot be true because the pairwise comparison matrix of the four selection criteria with respect to the decision goal
has clearly shown through its rst row that C
1
is more important than C
3
and C
4
. Moreover, the relative importance
weights of Candidate 2 with respect to criteria C
2
and C
4
have also been overestimated by the DEAHP and cannot be true
either. These overestimates make the DEAHP wrongly select Candidate 2 as the best candidate for the President, as shown
in Table 5, where the global priorities are obtained by aggregating the local priorities in Table 4, particularly without nor-
malization for the local priorities obtained by the DEA methodology. The nal global priorities by the DEA methodology
are summed to 1.0184, which is slightly bigger than one. The real best candidate is determined to be Candidate 1 who per-
forms better than Candidate 2 on the two most important selection criteria C
1
and C
4
. So, Candidate 1 was nally recom-
mended to the university council for approval.
6. Further comparison with the DEAHP
The proposed DEA methodology diers from the DEAHP not only in their models, but also in their ways of aggregat-
ing local priorities. As discussed in the previous section, the proposed DEA methodology aggregates the best local prior-
ities using the SAW method which is the traditional way utilized by the AHP, but there is no normalization to be
performed for the best local priorities. The DEAHP, however, provides two ways for the aggregation of local priorities.
The rst way is to take no account of the local priorities of decision criteria and determine the global priority of each deci-
sion alternative by the following input-oriented CCR model:
Maximize

m
j1
w
0j
v
j
; 18
Subject to
u
1
1;

m
j1
w
ij
v
j
u
1
6 0; i 1; . . . ; n;
u
1
; v
j
P0; j 1; . . . ; n;
_

_
where v
j
(j = 1, . . . , m) are decision variables rather than the local priorities of decision criteria. The second way that the
DEAHP provided is to incorporate the local priorities of decision criteria into the above CCR model (18) through addi-
tional constraints in the form of multipliers v
j
= d
j
v
1
= (w
j
/w
1
)v
1
(j = 1, . . . , m). As a result, model (18) becomes
Maximize v
1

m
j1
w
0j
d
j
_ _
; 19
Subject to
u
1
1;
v
1

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _
u
1
6 0; i 1; . . . ; n;
u
1
; v
1
P0:
_

_
For this model, we oer the theorem below.
Theorem 3. Let v

1
and w

A
0
be the optimum solution and optimum objective function value of model (19). Then, there
exist
v

1

1
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _; 20
w

A
0
v

m
j1
w
0j
d
j
_ _

m
j1
w
0j
w
j
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
w
j
_ _: 21
Proof. From the constraints of (19), it can be derived that
248 Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250
v
1
6
u
1

m
j1
w
ij
d
j

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
; i 1; . . . ; n;
which can be equivalently expressed as
v
1
6 min
i2f1;...;ng
1

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _

1
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _:
In order to make the objective function of (19) achieve its maximum value, v
1
has to take its upper bound value. That is
v

1

1
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _:
As a result, the maximum objective function value is computed as
w

A
0
v

m
j1
w
0j
d
j
_ _

m
j1
w
0j
d
j
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
d
j
_ _

m
j1
w
0j
w
j
=w
1

max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
w
j
=w
1

_ _

m
j1
w
0j
w
j
max
i2f1;...;ng

m
j1
w
ij
w
j
_ _:
This completes the proof. h
Theorem 3 shows that the solution of CCR model (19) is in fact not necessary. The global priorities can be directly com-
puted using the SAW method as we did in Table 2. That is, the local priorities are rst aggregated using the SAW method
and then normalized by dividing them by their maximum value. Table 6 shows the aggregation process for the numerical
example provided by Ramanathan [9]. The normalized global priorities are exactly the same as those (Table 4 in [9])
obtained by solving the CCR model (19). From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the second way provided
by the DEAHP is nothing but the normalization method suggested by Belton and Gear [1].
As for the rst way expressed by model (18), Ramanathan [9] suggested that it should be preferred when calculating the
nal weights of decision alternatives unless there is strong reason to introduce criteria weights and that if criteria weights
are important, then the nal weights calculated with and without restriction should be presented together (P. 1302, Rama-
nathan [9]). In our view, however, Ramanathans suggestion is not very persuasive. If the local priorities of decision criteria
could be ignored, then there would be no need to construct a pairwise comparison matrix on the decision criteria. If the
local priorities of decision criteria could be ignored, then why should the local priorities of decision alternatives with
respect to the decision criteria be considered? They should be ignored either. Ignoring the local priorities of decision criteria
often leads to multiple decision alternatives being DEA ecient and unable to be distinguished by their global priorities.
This causes diculties in making a precise decision. Take the local priorities in Table 6 for example. The rst way of aggre-
gating local priorities evaluates alternatives A
1
and A
2
to be both DEA ecient, which makes their selection dicult to be
made. Extra information is therefore needed in order to make a nal decision.
Besides the signicant dierences in models and aggregation manners, the DEA methodology also diers from the DEA-
HP in their functionalities. First, the DEA methodology can overcome the drawbacks of the DEAHP and derive the best
local priorities consistent with DMs subjective judgments. This has been illustrated in Section 3 by examining the numerical
examples in Section 1. Next, the DEAmethodology is not only applicable to a singular pairwise comparison matrix, but also
applicable to a group of pairwise comparison matrices. The DEA model has been extended in Section 4 to deal with group
AHP decision making problems. The DEAHP, however, was developed only for a single pairwise comparison matrix.
7. Conclusions
In this paper, we started with two inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices to illustrate a signicant drawback of the
DEAHP, which derived illogical and counterintuitive priorities for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices no matter
Table 6
Aggregation of the DEAHP local priorities for the numerical example in [9] by the SAW method
Alternatives Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion 3 Criterion 4 DEAHP global priorities
1.0000 1.0000 0.6000 0.3333 Non-normalized Normalized
A
1
0.7143 0.1111 1.0000 1.0000 1.7587 0.7117
A
2
1.0000 1.0000 0.6000 0.3334 2.4711 1.0000
A
3
0.1429 0.5556 0.2000 0.1111 0.8555 0.3462
Y.-M. Wang, K.-S. Chin / European Journal of Operational Research 195 (2009) 239250 249
whether they have satisfactory consistency or not. To overcome this drawback and derive logical priorities for pairwise
comparison matrices, we proposed a new DEA methodology for priority determination and group decision making in
the AHP. Two special DEA models were constructed to derive the best local priorities from a pairwise comparison matrix
or a group of pairwise comparison matrices no matter whether they are perfectly consistent or not. The new DEA meth-
odology proves to have the following good characteristics:
Produce true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices.
Produce the best local priorities that are logical and consistent with DMs subjective judgments for inconsistent pairwise
comparison matrices.
Utilize the widely used simple additive weighting method for aggregation of the best local priorities without the need of
normalization.
Applicable to both the AHP and group AHP decision making problems.
It is expected that the new DEA methodology can play an important role in the studies and applications of the AHP.
Our future research work is to see whether the new DEA methodology can be further extended to handle interval or fuzzy
AHP. This will be researched in the near future.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which are very helpful in
improving the paper.
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