Group Decision-Making Method Based on Expert Classification Consensus Information Integration

• Main Authors: Lei Wang, Huifeng Xue
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
• Series: Symmetry
• Subjects: group decision-making; hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set; clustering of experts; group consensus; information assembly
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/12/7/1180

Existing decision-making methods are mostly a simple aggregation of expert decision information when solving large group decision-making problems. In these methods, priority should be given to expert weight information; however, it is difficult to avoid the loss of expert decision information in the decision-making process. Therefore, a new idea to solve the problem of large group decision-making by combining the expert group clustering algorithm and the group consensus model is proposed in this paper in order to avoid the disadvantages of subjectively assigning expert weights. First, expert groups are classified by the clustering algorithm of breadth-first search neighbors. Next, the decision information of the experts in the class is corrected adaptively using the group consensus model; then, expert decision information in the class is integrated using probabilistic linguistic translation methods. This method not only avoids the shortcomings of artificially given expert weights, but also reduces the loss of expert decision information. Finally, the method comprehensively considers the scale of the expert class and the difference between the classes to determine the weight of the expert class, and then it weights and integrates the consensus information of all expert classes to obtain the final decision result. This article verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method through a case analysis of urban water resource sustainability evaluation, and provides a scientific evaluation method for the sustainable development level of urban water resources.