Supply chain trust diagnosis (SCTD) using inductive case-based reasoning ensemble (ICBRE): The case of general competence trust diagnosis

  • Authors:
  • Hui Li;Jie Sun;Jian Wu;Xian-Jun Wu

  • Affiliations:
  • School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Normal University, P.O. Box 62, 688 YingBinDaDao Street, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, PR China;School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Normal University, P.O. Box 62, 688 YingBinDaDao Street, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, PR China;School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Normal University, P.O. Box 62, 688 YingBinDaDao Street, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, PR China;School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, PR China

  • Venue:
  • Applied Soft Computing
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

General competence trust among supply chain partners, referring to the trust that a partner holds the general ability of fulfilling contracts, is a critical factor to ensure effective cooperation in a supply chain, especially in the current financial crisis. The method of supply chain trust diagnosis (SCTD) is to evaluate whether or not a partner holds such competence. This research devotes to an early investigation on diagnosing competence trust of supply chain with the method of inductive case-based reasoning ensemble (ICBRE). The so-called supply chain trust diagnosis with inductive case-based reasoning ensemble consists of five levels, that is, information level, the level of ratios of general competence states, the level of inductive case-based reasoning, ensemble level, and diagnosis result level. Knowledge for diagnosing competence trust, which composes of a case base, is hidden in data represented by ratios of general competence states. Inductive approach is combined with randomness to construct diverse and good member methods of inductive case-based reasoning. Finally, simple voting is used to integrate outputs of member inductive case-based reasoning methods in order to produce the final diagnosis on whether or not a partner holds the general ability of fulfilling contracts. We statistically validated results of the method of supply chain trust diagnosis with inductive case-based reasoning ensemble by comparing them with those of multivariate discriminant analysis, logistic regression, single Euclidean case-based reasoning, and single inductive case-based reasoning. The results indicate that the method of supply chain trust diagnosis with inductive case-based reasoning ensemble significantly improves predictive capability of case-based reasoning in this problem and outperforms all the comparative models by group decision of several decision-making agents and non-strict assumptions like statistical methods.