Web Based Multi Criteria Decision Making
Using AHP Method
Fadwa Gamal Mohammed AI-Azabl, Media A. Ayu2
Department of Information Systems
Faculty of Information
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I fadwaalazab@yahoo.com, 2 media@kict.iiu.edu.my
Abstract- This paper discusses about a useful
mechanism that has been built to guide the decision makers
in how to make decision for certain problem using AHP
method. AHP is one of multi-criteria decision making tools
that have been used in decision making. This system will
provide an accurate and acceptable result based on several
criteria and alternatives provided by the user. The Web
Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making System Using AHP
Method will provide a convenient, reliable and faster way
for the user to make a decision and get the final result of the
decision by showing the best alternative based on the most
important criteria. It is developed using P HP, MySQL,
Apache Server, Dreamweaver, Adobe P hotoshop
JavaScript. This paper presents the development of the
WBMCDM system using AHP method.
Keywo rds-AHP , Alternatives, Criteria, Matrix, P air-wise
comparison, Scale, Web Based Multi Criteria Decision
Making using AHP Method.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, computer and internet have played a very
important role in improving people's life. The resolution
of Information Technology has made everything easy,
flexible, and reachable. IT has been involved in many
different areas such as education, buying and selling,
business, and decision making.
Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) is one of the
multi -criteria decision making tools that had been used
widely in assisting people and organization in their
decision making process. The study presented in this
paper is about developing a decision making system. This
system will be very beneficial for any type of user who
wants to be assisted to the best decision. The main
objective of this system is to provide a useful mechanism
and guidance to users in how to solve their problems
using AHP method.
Furthermore, providing accurate and acceptable
result based on several criteria using AHP method within
a few minutes, the user will be able to get the final
solution for that particular problem.
This paper describes the developments of a web­
based multi-criteria decision making system which assists
user on how to find the best decision. The exploration
presented in this paper starts with a brief description
about some theories related to the Analytic Hierarchy
& Communication Technology
Process method used and some previous related works,
followed by an explanation about the design of the
system prototype that will describe the system
functionalities, then the implementation of the study
which provides the screenshots of the developed system,
followed with discussion, and finally conclusion.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This section describes some theoretical backgrounds
which are related to this study.
and
A. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Method
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a decision
making method that had been developed by Thomas L.
Saaty in 1970s. It is designed to solve complex multi­
criteria decision problems. AHP requires the decision
maker to provide judgements about the relative
importance of each criterion and then to specify a
preference for each decision alternative using each
criterion. AHP allows better, easier and more efficient
identification of selection criteria, their weighting and
analysis.
AHP allows a logical mixture of data, which could be
quantitative, qualitative, experience, insight, and intuition
in its algorithmic framework. It enables decision makers
to find the weight of each criterion.
It has been mentioned by Anderson, that AHP method
is used to solve a MCDM problem, and in order to get the
decision we need the following steps[l]: -
• Identify the alternatives.
• Identify the criteria and sub criteria, if there is any.
Sometimes, sub criteria may not be available for
all criteria, which means that only criteria should
be identified.
• Building the pair wise comparisons by
establishing the priorities for the available criteria
and then compare between each pair based on the
most important criterion.
• Then constructing a matrix of the pair wise
comparison rating to determine the priorities for
all criteria.
• After constructing the pair wise comparison
matrix then it has to calculate the priority of each
 criterion in term of its contribution to the overall
goal of selecting the best among the alternatives.
This step is called Synthesization. In order to
achieve a good approximation result that should
be followed, there are three steps which as: -
1. Finding the sum of each column in the
matrix.
2. Dividing each element in the pair wise
comparison matrix by its column total. The
resulting matrix refers as Normalized pair
wise comparison matrix.
3. Compute the average of elements in each
row of the normalized pair wise comparison
matrix. This average shows the priorities for
each criterion.
• Finally, deciding whether the pair wise
comparison is consistence or not. This operation
is called Consistency. AHP provides a
measurement of consistency for pair wise
comparisons by computing the Consistency Ratio.
If the result of the Consistency Ratio is greater
than 0.10, it indicates an inconsistency in the pair
wise comparison. Therefore, if the Consistency
Ratio is 0.1 0 or less, the value of the consistency
of the pair wise comparison is considered as
reasonable. The steps are as following:-
1. Multiply each value in the first column of the
pair wise comparison matrix by the priority
of the first item, mUltiply each value in the
second column of the pair wise comparison
matrix by the priority of the second item, and
so one for the other columns. Then sum the
values across the rows to obtain a vector
values which called "weight sum".
2. Divide the values of the weight sum by
priority for each criterion.
3. Compute the average of the values found in
step 2.
4. Compute the Consistency Index. The formula
is CI (!\max - n) / (n 1).
= -
5. Compute the Consistency Ratio. The formula
is CR CI / RI.
=
• Where RI is the consistency index of a
random generated pair wise
comparison matrix. The value for RI
depends on the number of items being
compared as shown in Table 1:
•
Table 1: Consistency Index of Random Number
3 8
0.58
AHP method is used around the world in a wide
variety of decision situations, in fields such as
government, business, industry, healthcare, and education.
While it can be used by individuals working on
straightforward decisions, the AHP is the most useful
method where a group of people can work on complex
problems, especially those with high stakes, involving
human perceptions and judgements, whose resolutions
have long-term repercussions, It has a unique advantages
when important elements of the decision are difficult to
quantify or compare, or where communication among
team members is impeded by their different
specializations, terminologies, or perspectives [2].
Decision situations to which the AHP can be applied
include the following:-
1. Choice - The selection of one alternative from a
given set of alternatives, usually where there are
multiple decision criteria involved [2].
2. Ranking - Putting a set of alternatives in order
from most to least desirable [2].
3. Prioritization - Determining the relative merit of
members of a set of alternatives, as opposed to
selecting a single one or merely ranking them [2].
4. Resource allocation - Apportioning resources
among a set of alternatives [2].
5. Benchmarking - Comparing the processes in
one's own organization with those of other best­
of-breed organizations [2].
6. Quality management - Dealing with the
multidimensional aspects of quality and quality
improvement [2].
B. Related Work
AHP method has been applied into several areas such
as Accounting, Computers, Architecture, Health,
Marketing, Forecasting Finance, Education, Technology,
Risk Analysis, Sports, Transportation, Resource
Allocation, and many other fields. Some of the papers
had mentioned about the implementation of AHP method
as a web based and how it helps to solve the problem [3,
4, 5].
Omkarprasad [6] has mentioned about some of the
applications which have been developed for different
areas such as AHP was used as an aid in making location
allocation decisions, to fmd demand forecasting for
inventory. Demand forecasting is very crucial in
inventory management as the forecasting is done on the
basis of production transportation, and inventory levels.
Use of AHP in the forecasting technologies offers a
possibility to include both the tangible and the non­
tangible factors, and the ability to make some future
developments of the environmental factors. The aim of
demand forecasting is to estimate the amount of the
product and accompanying services that the customers
will require. It is used for multi-objective analysis of
middle to large size hospital delivery system. The
delivery, transportation and distribution services are
1.41 evaluated to check whether a group of robots can replace
the human based system. Furthermore, AHP is useful in
selecting the best casting suppliers from the group of
evaluated suppliers and for software selection called
Multi-media Authorizing System (MAS). They used the
group decision-making technique, which included six
software engineers.
 The importance of the AHP method could be used to
identify and analyse the certain barriers which could
delay the implementation of a particular project, for
example identifying and analysing the barriers that could
delay the implementation of the biomass cooking stove.
The barriers corresponding to IBCS are identified then
the rankings of these barriers corresponding to stipulate
criteria are carried out. AHP method was used to solve
the problem [7].
It has been mentioned by Maggie [8] that AHP can
be very useful in involving several decision-makers with
different conflicting objectives to arrive at a consensus
decision. In her paper, an AHP-based model is formulated
and applied to a real case study to examine its feasibility
in selecting a vendor for a telecommunications system.
The use of the proposed model indicates that it can be
applied to improve the group decision making in
selecting a vendor that satisfies customer specification.
Also, it is found that the decision process is systematic
and using the proposed AHP model can reduce the time
taken to select a vendor.
AHP method has been used to solve a residents'
selection housing problem. AHP provides a methodology
for analysis, which applied to housing project failure
potential, and creates a "cost-effective, customized,
flexible and logical design plan". The main focus of the
hierarchy is the probability of selection for housing [9].
The works mentioned previously show that AHP is
very useful and beneficial method as an aiding tool in
decision making process. However, there are very few
available online systems that AHP process is supported
for free. AHP process has been implemented into online
system where user will be able to access the system from
where ever they are. This paper will review briefly about
through an HTTP connection protocol. The user can view
the system through his/her web-browser.
On the server side, the web based decision making
application receives the information supplied by the user
through the web server. And then this information is
processed by the application and stored in the database.
The application then will generate the information
from the database and it will return a particular form to
the user in order to provide his/his judgements so the web
application can get the data and start to perform the AHP
process. After the AHP process has been completed, the
result will be saved in the database and sent back the
result through the web server to the user's interface.
The web based multi-criteria decision making system
using AHP method is developed using PHP, and the
database management system (DBMS) is handled by
MySQI. The use case diagram is used to assist in
decomposing the system scope into more manageable
pieces. It identifies the system functions from the
perspective of external user. This system will be used by
two different users which are the administrator and a
member user. Moreover, each of those users will have
different privileges that will be granted by the developer
and it helps to demonstrate the functionalities of the
system for each user account as presented in Figure 1.
Admin

two existing systems where user can login and use them
for free. The first website is 123AHP [10]. It is an easy
system, it has user friendly interface. This system helps j·· j·· · -fGtI!Ustr' S�ltUV
user to go through the AHP process automatically which :

means user will never be lost. The system displays the �· j··� · -f�
: :
:
result as bar chart. The other system is AHP Project Free 1 : ... .'.
Web-Based Decision Support Tool Learning Management
i
System. This system is complicated and more advanced
comparing with the first system. It does not have a user
friendly interface. The system displays the result using
different type of charts such as pie, bar, line, and radar
chart. The user has to know how to go through the AHP
process because the system is not automaticaIly taking
the user through the steps [11].

III. PROTOTYPE DESIGN

A Web Based Multi Criteria Decision Making

System uses Analytic Hierarchy Process has been
developed in this project. The core tools that have been
used to build the system are 1. a web server, 2. a web
application, 3. a database, 4. an internet connection.
It is a computerised system that provides a decision �'save Hessage toAlimin
a

creation, evaluating the data, and providing the final

result online to the user. The computer server that hosts
the system application is linked to the user's computer Fig. I.The use case diagram of the web-based multi criteria decision
making system
 The activity diagram is used to model the process steps form as shown below as presented in Figure 3 and
or activities. This diagram explains the user registration Figure 4.
process, login, and AHP process in the multi-criteria
decision making system that shows how the user and DecIsion Title �
system interacts with each other as presented in Figure 2. Number of Anernatl ve _
r !,r _ E. r lax '>

Number of Criteria �
r l, r :::: E. r !9� ...,

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Fig. 4.Screenshot of the page to key in the alternatives and criteria
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Second, when the user keys in the alternatives and

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the criteria and then click next. The system will save
the alternatives and criteria in the database. In this
""''''''_0.0-
I Get Request
stage the system will only use criteria in order to
Oeosicnlnfomw!bonPage build the pair wise comparison. So the system will
Key in Tik &.tunberof altm'IIItMS &.Cntena Get data about !hi! 0I!cisKin
K take the first criteria 'C l' with the second criteria
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three criteria then C1 with C2, C1 with C3, and
Askusertoh'akJatl!:
finally C2 with C3. The system will apply a
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OIspiaythtM5tnxWith BestCnteria particular script to build it, as presented in Figure 5.
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Evallat!IhePWCforAl�tJves Ask user to !'Vutr
Rank1 Puce • Capacity 0
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GetRwt Show the Re:sUt of tht Best Altefnat:J\le Fig. 5.Screenshot of page for selecting the most preferred criteria
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'" Third, when the user selects the most important

("",L,", o,(M � criteria from pair wise comparison. The system will
• take the selected one and will compare it with left
side of the pair as well as the right side of the pair in
order to highlight the chosen one that will help user
Fig. 2.The activity diagram of the web-based multi criteria decision
to recognize the selected criteria. After that he/she
making system has to judge how much the selected one is more
important so the system can take that particular
IV. IMPLEMENTATION number to start the AHP calculation and display the
final result for criteria as presented in Figure 6 and
A Web Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making System
Figure 7.
Using AHP Method consists of several functions. The
Please gIve your Judgment
most important and main function is the AHP process How ..
mu( h more Importan1 the ple(1e-d Cuteu<t I" wllh the Yellow Color
where the user has to make his/her decision. The process Rank 1 Puce (,tp.tllty �
goes through several stages which are described in details Rank ;;> 1'11«' J>,ocessof �
below. Rank 3 ("p.t(lty f�rocesso, �
• First, the user has to provide the system with
Fig. 6.Screenshot of the scale evaluation of the criteria
decision title and the number of the alternatives and
criteria to be saved in the database. The reason of
providing this information is to give the system a
starting point. The title will be used to give a
declaration about what is the problem or decision is
about. The number of alternatives and criteria is
provided by the user, in order for the system to know
how many forms should be displayed for both
alternatives and criteria. So that the user will key in
the alternatives and criteria based on the number of
Fig. 7.Screenshot of the Matrix for Criteria with most important
criterion
 Fifth, once the most important criteria found. The
system will call all the alternatives from the database
for that particular problem to build the pair wise
comparison for alternatives based on each criterion.
After that the system will take the selected one and
will compare it with left side of the pair as well as
the right side of the pair in order to highlight the
chosen one that will help user to recognize the
selected criteria where he/she has to rank how much
the selected one is more important as presented in
Figure 8 and Figure 9.
Fig. 8.Screenshot of page for selecting the most preferred
alternative based on the particular criterion
Fig. 9.Screenshot of the scale evaluation of alternatives based on each
criterion
After providing the rank, the system takes the user's
rank and it will use it to fill up the matrix. The
system will compare the selected alternative with the
other criteria in order to know in which index the
selected rank should be put to build the matrix for
alternatives. Using the pair wise comparison matrix,
the system will start to calculate the priority of each
of the pair wise comparison matrix; this step is
referred to as Synthesization as presented in Figure
10.
Fig. IO.Screenshot of the Matrix for Alternatives based on each
criterion
• Finally, taking the weights from the above Figure 10
with the weights for the criteria from Figure 8, the
system will calculate the overall priority rank to find
the best alternative as presented in Figure 11.
Fig. II.Screenshot of the final result
V. DISCUSSION
After going through the system implementation, the
system allows the user to key in a number of alternatives
and criteria with a minimum of 2 and maximum of 5 for
both.
The interface design is user-friendly, straight forward,
fast, simple, and easy to navigate through the pages. It is
user-friendly since it displays the steps of the AHP
process in sequence and each step is shown in a new page
in order not to confuse the user while he/she navigating
through the system. The user will not have any problem
going through the AHP progress because each time the
user provides the information and click next the user will
be directed to the next page which means the user is
directed by the system. The new system overcomes one
of the disadvantages of the existing system which is
guiding the user through the pages. In each page of the
system interface there is a link called HELP, this link is
provided to the user in case if the user gets any
difficulties in understanding the process thus it will
explain the process with providing examples to make it
easy for the user.
This paper has discussed the implementation of AHP
model in the previous section and it shows that the
system has done the process successfully. It has been
tested that the result from the system was the same as the
result of doing the calculation manually. The different is
that using the system is faster than the manual calculation.
It saves a lot of time. Furthermore, the system could be
used by any user even those who do not have any idea
about the AHP concept because the system is processing
everything for the user from behind. However, the
manual way requires knowledge about formulas, concept,
and the way of solving a problem using AHP concept
which not any user will be able to make it. Other
advantages of developing such system are enabling any
user from any background to use the system, providing
the solution within few minutes, and provide an accurate
and efficient result.
When the user interact with the system he/she will
need to provide few information in the first two pages
and the rest of pages will be only by selecting from the
radio button or from the drop down menu for the scale
that will make the system not complicated. It has been ACKNOWLEDGMENT
proven that the system is not complicated by conducting First and foremost, I would like to praise and thank
a user acceptance test. to ALLAH (SWT) whose blessing enabled me to
The user acceptance test has been done by six people complete the project.
from different backgrounds. The response from the users I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Asst.
was very good. They found it easy and the interface was Prof. Dr. Media A. Ayu for her supervision, guidance,
user friendly. The AHP process was not that much helpful suggestion and moral encouragement throughout
complicated taking user from one step to another very the completion of the project.
smoothly. Some of the respondents had given some I would like to thank to all of my friends and
suggestion in order to be implemented in the system and everyone who directly or indirectly help me to complete
to make it more user-friendly. All the suggestion has been this project.
taken into consideration for system improvements.
The advantages of building such system are 1. REFERENCE
Building a new mechanism that can support user decision.
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[3] Chauhan K A., Shah N C., Rao Venkata. (2008). The Analytical
decision problem within 5 minutes comparing with the
Hierarchy Process as a Decision -Support System in the Housing
manual way that may take around 4 hours depends on the Sector: A Case Study.
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result. 5. By this project, we can prove that IT Process.

[6] Omkarprasad., V, (2004) .Analytic hierarchy process: An
technologies can be merged with other sciences and it
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VI. CONCLUSION & FUTURE W ORK V III.
The Web Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making [ 8] Maggie.T., (2004). An application of the AHP in vendor selection
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[11] AHP Project Free Web-Based Decision Support Tool Learning
making system allows user to make a decision with
Management System http://www. ahpproject. com /Default.aspx
minimum criteria and alternatives of 2 and maximum
criteria and alternatives of 5. There are still many modules
for future enhancement to make the system more flexible,
reliable and user effective. Some of these enhancements
are increasing the number of alternatives and criteria,
creating forum, and building a decision library.
Finally, Web Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making
System Using AHP Method has achieved the main
objective of the project which is providing users with a
reliable and flexible tool to assist them about the best
method that could be used to solve their problems in a
perfect way and minimum time.
The future work will target some improvements in
increasing the number of alternatives and criteria where
the system will provide a solution for more complex
problem. Furthermore, there could be another way to
display the result as bar chart or pie chart. Also trying to
build a library which will be used to provide a user with
list of some problems that have been created by the users
of the system and another user will be able to use that
particular problem if he/she got a match in preferences.