The AHP method allows you to generate a single measure of desirability for project alternatives with respect to multiple attributes (qualitative and quantitative). By contrast, life-cycle cost (Practice E917), net savings (Practice E1074), savings-to-investment ratio (Practice E964), internal rate-of-return (Practice E1057), and payback (Practice E1121) methods all require you to put a monetary value on benefits and costs in order to include them in a measure of project worth.

Use AHP to evaluate a finite and generally small set of discrete and predetermined options or alternatives. Specific AHP applications are ranking and choosing among alternatives. For example, rank alternative building locations with AHP to see how they measure up to one another, or use AHP to choose among building materials to see which is best for your application.

Use AHP if no single alternative exhibits the most preferred available value or performance for all attributes. This is often the result of an underlying trade-off relationship among attributes. An example is the trade-off between low desired energy costs and large glass window areas (which may raise heating and cooling costs while lowering lighting costs).

Use AHP to evaluate alternatives whose attributes are not all measurable in the same units. Also use AHP when performance relative to some or all of the attributes is impractical, impossible, or too costly to measure. For example, while life-cycle costs are directly measured in monetary units, the number and size of offices are measured in other units, and the public image of a building may not be practically measurable in any unit. To help you choose among candidate buildings with these diverse attributes, use AHP to evaluate your alternatives.

Potential users of AHP include architects, developers, owners, or lessors of buildings, real estate professionals (commercial and residential), facility managers, building material manufacturers, and agencies managing building portfolios.