Tom Schmid is thinking about buying a Nordic ski machine. The three factors important to him are price, ease of use, and the ability to store the exercise equipment in a closet when he is done using it. Given the following data, help Tom determine the better machine for him:
FACTOR WEIGHTS | |
---|---|
FACTOR | IMPORTANCE WEIGHT |
Price | 0.9 |
Ease of use | 0.75 |
Storage | 0.6 |
FACTOR EVALUATIONS | ||
---|---|---|
FACTOR | PROFESSIONAL NORDIC SKIER | ECONO NORDIC SKIER |
Price | 0.5 | 0.8 |
Ease of use | 0.95 | 0.6 |
Storage | 0.9 | 0.7 |
Given these data, we can multiply the weights by the evaluations for each skier and then sum the results. The results are shown in the following table:
FINAL EVALUATIONS | ||
---|---|---|
FACTOR | PROFESSIONAL NORDIC SKIER | ECONO NORDIC SKIER |
Price | ||
Ease of use | ||
Storage | ||
Total | 1.70 | 1.59 |
Given this analysis, Tom should select the Professional Nordic Skier.
Gretchen Little has used the AHP to determine factor evaluations. The consistency index for her problem is 0.0988. The number of factors in her problem is four. Can you draw any conclusions from these data?
Using a value of 4 for n, we look in the table in this module to get the random index (RI). From the table with a value of 4 for n, we see that RI is 0.90. From this information we can compute the consistency ratio as follows:
Because CR is close to but greater than 0.10, her pairwise comparisons may not have been consistent. It is recommended that she re-solve the problem carefully and recompute the consistency ratio.