Selection of the best consultant for SAP ERP project using combined AHP-IBA approach

Abstract

In this paper we propose a combined AHP-IBA model for selecting the best SAP consultant for an SAP ERP project. The goal of the SAP Project Manager is to choose the best consultant, the one who is able to implement standard SAP functionalities with quality and on time. When making a decision on the basis of multiple criteria, the traditional Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method does not take into account the fact that attributes may correlate, assuming that there are no dependencies between them. However, the dependencies of the attributes can often be used to model important knowledge for multiple criteria decision analysis. We propose an extension to the traditional AHP method by applying Interpolative realization of Boolean algebra (IBA), using AHP to determine the criteria weights, and IBA to model the logical interactions among criteria. The research conducted on ERP consultant selection suggests that the decision making process is modeled more accurately if logical interactions between attributes are modeled before applying AHP.