AbstractA project to reduce the despatch costs of a manufacturer is described. This involved the construction of a model that would enable the lowest-cost haulier to be selected and answer the question of which of that haulier's depots should be used to handle the despatches. The existing information system did not generate the necessary data for the regular use of a model based on actual despatches. Furthermore, the pattern of demand was fairly volatile, so that the least-cost haulier might have been expected to change quite often. Therefore, the use of the analytic hierarchy process to derive the necessary data was explored. Attempts were made to compare the results of a complete census of traffic carried out in the initial stage of the project with the data obtained from the analytic hierarchy process.