CONSISTENCY IMPROVEMENT METHOD FOR FUZZY PAIR-WISE COMPARISON MATRIX IN ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

Maintaining consistency is a crucial element in ensuring the reliability of pairwise comparisons provided by experts in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP. Many researchers have put forth various definitions concerning the consistency of fuzzy Pairwise Comparison Matrices (PCMs) using fuzzy set theory. However, in most applications of fuzzy AHP, fuzzy PCM consistency is evaluated by defuzzifying the fuzzy comparisons, similar to the approach used for crisp PCMs. This paper introduces a novel method for transforming fuzzy comparisons into crisp comparisons through defuzzification, specifically utilizing the geometric mean. Furthermore, it proposes a method to enhance the consistency of the PCM. The presented methodology is applied to several problems previously addressed in the literature.