A linear goal programming priority method for fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and its applications in new product screening

Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely used for a variety of applications such as supplier selection, customer requirements assessment and the like. The vast majority of the applications, however, were found avoiding the use of sophisticated approaches for fuzzy AHP such as fuzzy least squares method while using a simple extent analysis for the sake of simplicity. The extent analysis proves to be incorrect and may lead to a wrong decision being made. This paper proposes a sound yet simple priority method for fuzzy AHP which utilizes a linear goal programming (LGP) model to derive normalized fuzzy weights for fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices. The proposed LGP priority method is tested with three numerical examples including an application of fuzzy AHP to new product development (NDP) project screening decision making. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.