Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process in Analyzing the Priorities of Strategy for Improving the Army Military Foodservice

The current exploratory study presents the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a potential decision-making method to obtain the relative weights of alternatives through pairwise comparison in the context of hierarchical structure. The aim of this study was to elicit prior strategy to improve army military foodservice. Content analysis and seven times of in-depth interview from 13 officers of the Ministry of National Defense were conducted to develop the hierarchical structure for AHP analysis. Questionnaires were distributed to 61 foodservice managers and 39 dietitian and military foodservice officers. The highest-ranked strategy for improving military foodservice was the ‘renewal of the kitchen facilities’ (0.2578), followed by ‘enlargement of foodservice operating staffs’ (0.2345), ‘specialization of sanitation & foodservice management’ (0.2222), ‘Practical foodservice budget control’ (0.1394), and ‘menu variety & standardized recipe’ (0.1281). ‘Enlargement of foodservice facilities’ (0.3995), ‘increase the no. of kitchen police’ (0.3463), ‘sanitary & cooking training reinforcement of kitchen police’ (0.4445), ‘management of foodservice budget by total amount’ (0.5043), and ‘standardization of mass cooking’ (0.3571) were the highest overweight item in each strategy. The study also compared the relative weights of alternatives of foodservice managers with that of dietitians and military foodservice officers. Those two groups revealed some difference in their priority of important strategy regarding army military foodservice. The results of this study would provide the data for making a policy or compilation of the budget regarding army military foodservice. (Korean J Community Nutr 19(1) : 51~59, 2014)