A Multi-granular Hierarchical Evaluation Model for Multiple Criteria Three Sorting

Abstract

A hierarchical organization is common in most corporations, where some entities (objects) in the lower granulation level are subordinate to a single other entity (object) in the follow-on higher granulation level. During recent years, how to evaluate the objects in a group corporation has become a key strategic consideration. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-granular hierarchical evaluation model for multiple criteria three sorting. In the model, the objects in a granulation level are assigned to three ordinal classes based on the theory of three-way decisions and the rating system, instead of accurately sorting them. Furthermore, the evaluation results from the previous granulation level are employed as one type of criteria in the follow-on granulation level, called the evaluation result criteria. Additionally, we propose a three-way TOPSIS (the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method based on the characteristics of four types of criteria such as evaluation result criteria, benefit criteria, cost criteria and non-monotonic criteria. Besides, a pre-evaluation strategy is devised at each level inspired by the concept of first impressions. Then, the final evaluation results are obtained by studying the qualitative evaluation results of pre-evaluation method and the quantitative evaluation results of three-way TOPSIS method. Finally, a numerical case study from an aluminium electrolysis production enterprise is illustrated to show its viability.