Analytic network process ‐ an overview of applications in research and practice

This paper presents a comprehensive literature review of analytic network process (ANP)'s applications in research and practice. We conducted an extensive bibliometric analysis covering all available ANP publications in two prominent databases. A total of 283 application papers are referred in this paper. The publications are categorised according to their overall themes, application areas, publication dates, countries of origin and journals. Various tables and charts summarise these publications and their categories. The results indicate that the ANP is predominantly used for selection and evaluation. The majority of publications deal with the ANP as a decision‐making tool in the areas of politics, engineering and manufacturing. More specifically, most of the publications can be found in a combination of politics and selection, engineering and evaluation as well as manufacturing and evaluation topic. This paper is an informative summary of the ANP's applications for researchers and practitioners to support their future work by making use of the ANP.