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"Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is an approach to decision making that involves structuring multiple choice criteria into a hierarchy, assessing the relative importance of these criteria, comparing alternatives for each criterion, and determining an overall ranking of the alternatives", as defined by DSS Resources.
The concept of AHP was developed, amongst other theories, by Thomas Saaty, an American mathematician working at the University of Pittsburgh.
By organizing and assessing alternatives against a hierarchy of multifaceted objectives, AHP provides a proven, effective means to deal with complex decision making. Indeed, AHP allows a better, easier, and more efficient identification of selection criteria, their weighting and analysis. Thus, AHP reduces drastically the decision cycle.
AHP helps capture both subjective and objective evaluation measures, providing a useful mechanism for checking the consistency of the evaluation measures and alternatives suggested by the team thus reducing bias in decision making.
AHP allows organizations to minimize common pitfalls of decision making process, such as lack of focus, planning, participation or ownership, which ultimately are costly distractions that can prevent teams from making the right choice.
AHP is very useful when the decision-making process is complex, for instance, by being unstructured. Indeed, when the decision cycle involves taking into account a variety of multiple criteria which rating is based on a multiple-value choice, AHP splits the overall problem to solve into as many evaluations of lesser importance, while keeping at the same time their part in the global decision.
To do so, iterating from top (the more general) to bottom (the more specific), split the problem, which is unstructured at this step, into sub-modules that will become sub-hierarchies. Navigating through the hierarchy from top to bottom, the AHP structure comprises goals (systematic branches and nodes), criteria (evaluation parameters) and alternative ratings (measuring the adequacy of the solution for the criterion).
Each branch is then further divided into an appropriate level of detail. At the end, the iteration process transforms the unstructured problem into a manageable problem organized both vertically and horizontally under the form of a hierarchy of weighted criteria.
By increasing the number of criteria, the importance of each criterion is thus diluted, which is compensated by assigning a weight to each criterion.
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Request for Proposal Cover Letter 
by Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
Podcast: How Bad Performance Can Be Good for Business in Government Contracting
POGO's Scott Amey dishes out a post-mortem on a recent Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing--at which he testified--on contractor accountability..
POGO Provides Post-hearing Supplemental Materials to the Commission on Wartime Contracting
Pursuant to the Commission on Wartime Contracting's (Commission) request that the record for the hearing held on February 28, 2011, "Ensuring contractor accountability: Past performance and suspensions and debarments," be supplemented within thirty days, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) provides the following information. Specifically, POGO believes the Commission should recommend that the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) be expanded in scope and that the Department of Defense's (DoD) revolving door database of senior level acquisition officials be made publicly available.[2].
Solution: How the Government Can Stop Doing Business With Risky Contractors
It is very hard for the federal government to have a successful criminal or civil prosecution of their contractors and it is the hardest to do with the Department of Defense (DoD). In January, the DoD created a stir when it released its Report to Congress on Contracting Fraud, which examined the extent to which the Pentagon awarded contracts to companies that defrauded the government. The report found that, from Fiscal Year 2007 to Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, the DoD awarded almost $270 billion in contracts to 91 contractors found liable in civil fraud cases, and $682 million to 30 contractors convicted of criminal fraud. .
U.S.Government Rarely Suspends or Debars Those Responsible for Billions in Tax Dollars Lost to Fraud, Waste, Abuse in War Zones
Tens of billions of dollars are being lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan because of a toothless U.S. contracting system so reliant on a handful of major contractors that it rarely suspends or desbars them, even when those companies have committed serious offenses, according to the Project On Government Oversight's (POGO) testimony today before a independent, federal commission..
Commercial Item Exceptions Must be Eliminated From New Suspension and Debarment Rule
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) provides the following public comment to FAR Case 2009-036, "Federal Acquisition Regulation; Uniform Suspension and Debarment Requirement" (75 Fed. Reg. 77739, December 13, 2010). The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (the Councils) issued an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (P.L. 111-84), which extends the restriction on contracting to subcontractors at any tier that have been suspended or debarred, with certain exceptions for commercial item and commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) item acquisition contracts..
Should Debarred Contractors Be Allowed to Build Military Aircraft?
Today, POGO submitted a public comment about a new rule limiting the ability of suspended or debarred contractors to do business with the federal government. The rule prohibits prime contractors from subcontracting with any entity that has been suspended, debarred, or proposed for debarment..
Pentagon Cuts Back Contract Audits, Opens Door for Contractor Overpayments
Under the guise of eliminating overlap, the Pentagon last month sharply reduced oversight of defense contracts, according to memos obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). The changes, which give some of the duties of the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) to the less aggressive Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), were outlined in a January memo signed by Shay Assad, the director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy. DCAA staff were informed of the changes in a Jan. 31 memo from DCAA Director Patrick Fitzgerald..
Testimony of POGO's Nick Schwellenbach on "Improving Federal Contract Auditing"
We believe that there should be an independent Federal Contract Audit Agency (FCAA), as long as it is done right. This isn't a new idea: it is an idea that has been batted around since at least the 1980s, when DCAA whistleblower George Spanton exposed serious problems at DCAA. .
Federal Government Needs Strong, Independent Auditor to Oversee Billions in Contract Spending, POGO Tells Senate Panel
The responsibility of auditing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on defense and civilian contracts should fall to a single, independent agency that is outside of the Pentagon's chain of command, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) told a U.S. Senate panel today..
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 1:05:58 PM
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