Alternative Ranking-Based Clustering and Reliability Index-Based Consensus Reaching Process for Hesitant Fuzzy Large Scale Group Decision Making

Recently, large scale group decision making (LSGDM) problems have become a hotspot. This paper focuses on hesitant fuzzy LSGDM problems where decision makers (DMs) use hesitant fuzzy preference relations (HFPRs) to express their assessment information. HFPRs can represent the fuzziness and hesitancy of DM assessment information well. To improve the efficiency of hesitant fuzzy LSGDM problems, we first propose a reliability index-based consensus reaching process (RI-CRP). By assessing the ordinal consistency of DM's assessment information and measuring the deviation from collective opinion, the DM's opinion reliability index is given. To avoid unreliable information, we propose an unreliable DM management method to be used in the RI-CRP, based on the computation of DM's opinion reliability index. Moreover, an alternative ranking-based clustering (ARC) method with HFPRs is proposed to improve the efficiency of the RI-CRP. The similarity index between two DMs' opinions is provided to ensure the ARC method can be effectively implemented. Compared with those clustering methods which need to preset several correlated parameters, the presented ARC method is more objective with a different approach based on the alternative ranking. A numerical example shows that the proposed ARC method and the RI-CRP are feasible and effective for hesitant fuzzy LSGDM problems.