Multifactor decision making is appropriate when an individual, a group, or an organization faces a number of factors in a decision-making situation. With the MFEP, a decision maker assigns an importance weight to each factor. The weights can, for example, range from 0 to 1. Then, for each alternative, all factors are evaluated. The factor weights are multiplied by each factor evaluation for a given alternative and summed. The alternative with the highest overall score is selected.

With the AHP, the decision maker performs a number of pairwise comparisons between each pair of alternatives for each factor to determine the factor evaluations. A pairwise comparison is also performed between each pair of factors to determine the factor weights. This information is used to determine a total weighted evaluation for each alternative. The alternative with the highest total weighted evaluation is selected. The AHP approach also allows for the computation of a consistency ratio to help decision makers determine if their pairwise comparisons are consistent.