Introduction to a new weighting method – Hierarchy Consistency Analysis

This paper proposes a new methodology – Hierarchy Consistency Analysis (HCA). The approach to this methodology was developed owing to the fact that in the analysis of large-scale problems, a different viewpoint or specific points emphasis will result in different hierarchy structures. On the basis of different structures being created, the methodology is designed to combine these different structures, and estimate their compromised criterion weights so that all different hierarchy structures will have the same aggregated index. The HCA methodology will thus provide us with a comprehensive framework for solving hierarchy evaluation problems. Its merits include, amongst others, providing a simpler method for calculating the weight of criteria, providing a consistency index for monitoring decision making judgment consistency, and delivering more types of hierarchy structure schemata to aid the decision maker in understanding and auditing the performance status of systems.