Double-Frontier Analysis Approach for Weight Derivation in ‎Analytical Hierarchy Process

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) combined with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides Data Envelopment Analytic Hierarchy Process (DEAHP) methodology for weight derivation and aggregation. A double-frontier analysis approach is proposed in this article to derive priorities in AHP. The proposed method combines DEA variable weight with AHP from both optimistic and pessimistic views to obtain the most desirable and undesirable weights based on a pairwise comparison matrix for decision criteria or alternatives. This approach is able to eliminate DEAHP drawbacks to provide an improved estimate of priorities and better decisions than DEAHP. Two numerical examples including a real AHP application to recruit a research fellow for a research project were presented to demonstrate advantages of the proposed method and its potential applications in multiple-criteria decision analysis.