Defining a quality index for electric power utilities using multiple criteria decision support and time series analysis

Abstract

This paper presents a hybrid multi-criteria method developed through the combination of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and exponential smoothing techniques applied in time series forecasting. To illustrate its use, a model was developed with the aim of creating a quality index for electric power distribution utilities. The conclusions highlight the need to take into account the results obtained in the latest months for those utilities, but giving less attention to those obtained in the earlier months. This characteristic of the problem led to the idea of incorporating the mathematical formulation of the exponential smoothing into the aggregation function of the AHP. At the end, the utility company is given a score between 0 (zero) and 10 (ten).