Research and development evaluation at an early stage Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Problems seem to be emerged that the outcomes of research and development (R&D) do not relate to new products and profit in the manufacturing industries. Generally, the R&D targets and their specifications cannot be clearly set by engineers because they need to design new product and its specifications several years in advance. At an early stage of R&D which is important to build competitive priority, an evaluation method securely connecting the R&D with new product and profit is needed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), expected to be an effective decision-making support tool, was applied to evaluate R&D themes at an early stage. The correlation was obtained between the R&D results and AHP scores. The AHP was found to be an effective tool for decision-making of R&D as a gate of each early stage.