This document outlines a business idea to help entrepreneurs and businesses make important decisions using multi-criteria decision analysis methods. The business would create an online platform where clients can submit decision-making problems and criteria, and the business would then apply the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methods to provide a mathematically validated solution. Setting up the business would require developing a website, hiring technical and customer support teams, and initial financing, but the startup costs would be low and the business has significant ongoing potential to help businesses facing complex decisions.
2. Content
• Introduction
• Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
• Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal
Solution (TOPSIS)
• Business Idea
• Requirements to start this business
• Conclusion
3. Introduction
This is business idea for software developers and for them those who love mathematics.
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal
Solution (TOPSIS)- these are the two decision making processes that were initially used by
scientists for conducting scientific experiments but nowadays not just scientists but even big huge
businesses use these processes to optimize their enterprise.
These methods are typically used in selecting micromachining processes and other scientifically
important processes for selection of their process parameters. But the scope of these processes is
huge and vast, therefore, every day to day activity and hundreds of other activities not known to
us previously can be analyzed and studied using these processes.
4. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
The analytic hierarchy process (AHP), also analytical hierarchy process, is a structured technique
for organizing and analyzing complex decisions, based on mathematics and psychology. It was
developed by Thomas L. Saaty in the 1970s; Saaty partnered with Ernest Forman to
develop Expert Choice software in 1983, and AHP has been extensively studied and refined since
then. It represents an accurate approach to quantifying the weights of decision criteria.
Individual experts’ experiences are utilized to estimate the relative magnitudes of factors through
pair-wise comparisons. Each of the respondents compares the relative importance each pair of
items using a specially designed questionnaire. Once the weights for different criteria has been
decided the values are put in matrices and calculated and this method in done several ways and in
certain sequence as per defined in this process.
Reference: Analytic hierarchy process - Wikipedia
5. Technique for Order of Preference by
Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)
The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is a multi-
criteria decision analysis method, which was originally developed by Ching-Lai Hwang and
Yoon in 1981 with further developments by Yoon in 1987, and Hwang, Lai and Liu in
1993. TOPSIS is based on the concept that the chosen alternative should have the shortest
geometric distance from the positive ideal solution (PIS) and the longest geometric distance from
the negative ideal solution. It is a method of compensatory aggregation that compares a set of
alternatives by identifying weights for each criterion, normalising scores for each criterion and
calculating the geometric distance between each alternative and the ideal alternative, which is the
best score in each criterion. An assumption of TOPSIS is that the criteria
are monotonically increasing or decreasing. Normalisation is usually required as the parameters
or criteria are often of incongruous dimensions in multi-criteria problems. Compensatory
methods such as TOPSIS allow trade-offs between criteria, where a poor result in one criterion
can be negated by a good result in another criterion. This provides a more realistic form of
modelling than non-compensatory methods, which include or exclude alternative solutions based
on hard cut-offs. An example of application on nuclear power plants is provided in.
Reference: TOPSIS – Wikipedia
6. Business Idea
We can apply AHP and TOPSIS to micromachining process (Micro Hole Drilling, etc).
Therefore, we can apply these decision making methods to any application or process.
So we can open an online firm for industrialist, entrepreneurs or anyone who wants to make an
important business decision related to plant layout, machine selection, etc. We can create an
online website where any one struggling from any business decision can ask their difficulty. We
can further ask them to give details about their problem, its need, its application and all the
criteria related to their problem in the descending order of preference as a list and rate the criteria
from one to ten. We can do an industry/factory survey, talk to the owners about their problem and
do its detailed study for over a period of time for complete examination.
We can then finally after, we have understood their need and problem, can apply these decision
making processes to those criteria and give them an valid mathematically proven answer for their
problem which is guaranteed to work in mathematics.
7. Requirements to start this business
• An well designed online website
• A team for handling, maintaining, taking-distributing inputs from and feeding in outputs to, the
website (software team)
• A team for doing survey (technical team)
• A team for doing the mathematical work ( technical team)
• A managing body
• A financing body
• A marketing body
• A team for handling and dealing with customers
• A facilities (infrastructure, money, etc) to put these all together
8. Conclusion
This business idea is not so much demanding, to start it the initial investment required is very low
and this can be expanded pretty quickly.
This will help a lot of entrepreneurs and is the business of the future as every now and then every
business man faces a difficulty that he cannot solve or is too busy for that and the scope of this
business is everlasting.
And till now there is not a solid firm doing this job. So start this business and get going towards a
bright future.
My email: varadjaurkar1@gmail.com