Multi-criteria decision making with overlapping criteria

The evidential reasoning (ER) algorithm for multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) performs aggregation of the assessments of multiple experts, one each for every attribute (or subsystem or criterion) of a given system. Two variants of ER are proposed, that handle a scenario where more than one expert assesses an attribute. The first algorithm handles the case of multiple experts who assess an attribute of a larger system. Experiments compare a modification of ER for this scenario which results in poorer detection. The second algorithm is used when experts have overlapping areas of expertise among the subsystems. A comparison is made with a variant of ER in the literature. Both algorithms are examples of novel 'exclusive' and 'inclusive' ER. (C) 2012 Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.