Title: Rank Inclusion in Criteria Hierarchies

Authors: Ahti Salo and Antti Punkka

Status: European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 163, No. 2, 2005, pp. 338-356

Keywords: Multiple criteria analysis, decision analysis, hierarchical weighting models, incomplete preference information.

This paper presents a method called Rank Inclusion in Criteria Hierarchies (RICH) for the analysis of incomplete preference information in hierarchical weighting models. In RICH, the decision maker is allowed to specify subsets of attributes which contain the most important attribute or, more generally, to associate a set of rankings with a given set of attributes. Such preference statements lead to possibly non-convex sets of feasible attribute weights, allowing decision recommendations to be obtained through the computation of dominance relations and decision rules. An illustrative example on the selection of a subcontractor is presented, and the computational properties of RICH are considered.