Applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to define the Order Prioritization Coefficient (OPC) for production planning under disruptions

Abstract

In a post-disruption scenario, a difficult choice has to be made by companies that are often struggling to meet their customers' demands, about which customer to serve first. For that purpose, they need to use a fair method to maintain long-term customer relationships. The absence of well-defined criteria for prioritizing customer orders during disruptions is the main motivation for this studyTo this end, we present economic, strategic, and time-related criteria, weighted using the AHP approach, which enables us to categorize orders within a company into high-priority and low-priority orders. By applying this approach, a firm can rate the different criteria in a pairwise comparison and to assign a weight to each of them. The sum of weighted criteria will form what we call “Orders Prioritization Coefficient” (OPC). OPC value is company-specific, as it reflects the judgments and assessments of the company’s internal experts and decision-makers. An illustrative case study focusing on an automotive supplier is conducted to demonstrate the application of the proposed coefficient.