This paper deals with the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process in decision making and conflict resolution for ergonomic chair evaluation.
The Analytic Hierarchy Process is a method of breaking down a comflex, unstructed situation into its component parts, arranging these parts, arranging these parts, or variables, into a hierarchic order, assigning numerical values to subjective judgements on the relative importance of each variable, and synthesizing the judgements to determine the overall priorties of the variables.
The physical design of the chair affects the relative comfort and the functional utility of chairs in relationship with the physical structure and biomechanics of the human body. In this paper, by combining two components of the chair features proposed by Floyd and the 12 body parts proposed by Corllet, three kinds of hierarchies for chair assessment regarding comfort are constructed to determine the relative importance of each physical feature of the chair for specific task. The second and the third hierarchies are constructed to select the most comfortable chair for specific task. Finally, in reading/writing and typing task, the procedure of the chair assessment using Analytic Hierarchy Process is illustrated.
