A Sensitivity Analysis Approach for Some Deterministic Multi-criteria Decision Making Methods

Often data in multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems are imprecise and changeable. Therefore, an important step in many applications of MCDM is to perform a sensitivity analysis on the input data. This paper presents a methodology for performing a sensitivity analysis on the weights of the decision criteria and the performance values of the alternatives expressed in terms of the decision criteria. The proposed methodology is demonstrated on three widely used decision methods. These are the weighted sum model (WSM), the weighted product model (WPM), and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). This paper formalizes a number of important issues on sensitivity analysis and derives some critical theoretical results. Also, a number of illustrative examples and computational experiments further illustrate the application of the proposed methodology. Subject Areas: Analytic Hierarchy Process, Deterministic Decision Making, Multi-Criteria Decision Making, Sensitivity Analysis, Weighted Product Model, and Weighted Sum Model. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors are very grateful to the two anonymous referees and the anonymous associate editor. Their thoughtful and constructive comments significantly enhanced the context and presentation of this paper. Published in: Decision Sciences, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 151-194, Winter 1997.