GIS software selection: a multi criteria decision making approach

Building a new GIS project is a major investment. Choosing the right GIS software package is critical to the success and failure of such investment. The problem of selecting the most appropriate GIS software package for a particular GIS project is a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. Solving this problem requires consideration of a comprehensive set of factors and balancing of multiple objectives in determining the suitability of particular software for building a defined GIS application. In this paper a MCDM technique, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), is used to assist system developers to select the most appropriate GIS software for a specific application. An AHP decision model is formulated and applied to a hypothetical case study to examine its feasibility in solving GIS software selection problem. The use of the proposed model indicates that it can be applied to improve the decision making process and to reduce the time taken to select a GIS software.