The Templates  

1. 1

   Activate the Home Ribbon
2. 2

   Click the Add Tool button on the Home ribbon
3. 3

   Click the Analytic Hierarchy Process icon in the template catalog

In order to find the Analytic Hierarchy Process component within the template catalog, you have to choose a cycle name on the first line of the screen and a phase name at the left of the screen. The Analytic Hierarchy Process component is located in this cycle/phase combinations:

• DFSS DMADV: MEASURE
• DFSS IDOV: IDENTIFY

The AHP module provides an easy way to create the AHP matrices for VOC or any other tree. It calculates importance values and consistency indexes for each sub-matrix. Additional worksheets help to gain data from a questionnaire or fill out the matrices systematically during team sessions.

If you follow the steps on inserting the AHP component, it will try to link to the VOC tree. You can also link the AHP to any other tree in your project:

1. 1

   Select the target tree or an item in the target tree on any worksheet in your project.
2. 2

   Follow the steps to insert the component

An AHP can only work properly, if the criteria are sorted into groups with nearly equal number of items. For good results, try to find groups with not more than 9 elements each. It is also possible to build groups, subgroups and leaf items or even deeper tree structures.

If you expand the AHP's main worksheet in the project browser, the first sub-worksheet is well suited to do the grouping and sorting of the criteria. Of course, you can also use the Mind Map / Ishikawa component to create the criteria tree.