Using AHP and ANP to evaluate the relation between reverse logistics and corporate performance in Brazilian industry

Abstract

Reverse Logistics (RL) activities are practiced by most Brazilian industries. However, a relevant problem is to identify how different RL programs can affect corporate performance indicators. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the analytical tools which can be used to handle a multi-criteria decision-making problem and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is a similar technique, but it can capture the interdependencies between the criteria under consideration. Both approaches were adopted here to study the influence of RL practices in corporate performance. Preliminary results indicated that both methods can be used, being AHP the most efficient, because it requires a smaller number of judgments, and ANP the most reliable, because it considers element dependencies, which is more compatible to the reality of the Brazilian industries.