When working on a Six Sigma project, once you’ve obtained the voice of the customer, or other stakeholder, you’ll have a list of items that they say are important to them. But how important are they compared to one another? This question must be answered because you’ll want to devote more resources to the more important items.

We can answer this question using a technique called the Analytic Hierarchical Process, or AHP. AHP will provide quantitative weights to tell you the relative importance of each item so you can plan accordingly. Unlike arbitrary weights such as rankings, the weights you get using AHP can be used to help you determine which parts of your process will have the biggest impact on customer satisfaction.

What Is Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP)?

AHP asks people to compare items in pairs, which is a relatively easy thing for people to do. By mathematically manipulating these pairwise comparisons, AHP arrives at a weight for every importance item. The total of all of the weights adds up to 100%, which makes it easy to compare the weights to one another. For example, by asking a person to compare price to reliability, price to mileage, and reliability to mileage, AHP might calculate that a customer uses the weights shown when considering which automobile to purchase.

Why Is AHP Important?

AHP weights are ratio scale weights. Ratio scale numbers can be mathematically manipulated using addition, multiplication and so on. With AHP we can say something about how much more important A is than B. Most other schemes for obtaining importance weights produce results that are on a less powerful scale of measurement called an ordinal scale. Ordinal scale numbers can only be compared to one another, for example, you can say that A is more important than B, but you can’t say how much more important A is than B.

AHP Worksheet

Below is an AHP tool in a worksheet that you use to calculate importance weights for critical customer criteria.

If you are interested in AHP and would like to learn how to apply it in your Six Sigma project, please contact the Pyzdek Institute.


19 responses to “AHP Spreadsheet”

  1. seid Ali Avatar
    seid Ali

    Hello sir or madam I want AHP spreadsheet application.

    1. Juan Rivera Avatar
      Juan Rivera

      Hi Seid,

      Did you click on Download File on the top, right-hand corner of the table?

    2. Thomas Pyzdek Avatar
      Thomas Pyzdek

      We’ll take a look at why the download file link isn’t working. Thanks for the heads up. Standby …

  2. Alfred Avatar

    Hi Mr. Pyzdek,

    I have a question regarding pairwise comparison matrix. Is it normally 1-9, no matter how many pairs you have?
    Currently I am trying to work with 13 different pairs. Other than that, I don’t understand why some articles use 1,3,5,7,9 as scales and claim 2,4,6,8 as values for inverse comparison.

    Thank you in advance for your reply.

  3. Tanji Avatar

    Hi,
    I just download the AHP worksheet but the formulas don’t appear can you please send me a full worksheet?
    thank you

    1. Thomas Pyzdek Avatar
      Thomas Pyzdek

      Sorry, it has been many years since this post, and I cannot locate the original file.

  4. ADNAN KARABULUT Avatar
    ADNAN KARABULUT

    I am a PhD student in Occupational Safety. Where can I find free ISM software or excel sheet for my article work? Can you help me? Thank you.

  5. Mehdi Hassan Avatar
    Mehdi Hassan

    I clicked on download but it is not downloaded. Will you please assist me? I really need it.

    1. Thomas Pyzdek Avatar
      Thomas Pyzdek

      I clicked download now with a chrome browser on a mac and it downloaded for me.

  6. Talha Munshi Avatar
    Talha Munshi

    simply copy and paste this in MS excel.

  7. EL ABYAD Avatar
    EL ABYAD

    Bonjour Mr ,

    J’ai pas pu télécharger la feuille exel , Vraiment j’en est besoin ;
    Cordialement

    1. Tanji Avatar

      salut
      donnez moi votre adresse mail et je vous enverrai le fichier excel

  8. Marta Avatar

    Hi,

    I have a question. Is not clear how to calculate the CI and CR worksheet for each factor. Can you help me please? Because I’m not able to download the file too.

    Best regards,
    Marta

    1. Thomas Pyzdek Avatar
      Thomas Pyzdek

      This is a tool, not a tutorial on AHP. Search the internet for information on CI and CR.

  9. Hamdy Nabeih Avatar
    Hamdy Nabeih

    Thank You Sir

  10. sarthak Avatar

    how to edit this i want this please

    1. Thomas Pyzdek Avatar
      Thomas Pyzdek

      You can download it from the link and edit it.

  11. Haitham R. Elramlawi Avatar
    Haitham R. Elramlawi

    Simple, Accurate and Perfect
    Excellent Job

  12. Cathy Avatar

    I’ve searched all over for a good, simple template and you have saved the day!
    Many thanks indeed!

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