Cloud Delphi Method

Group decision making is an important category of problem solving techniques for complicated problems, among which the Delphi method has been widely applied. In this paper an improved Delphi method based on Cloud model is proposed in order to deal with the fuzziness and uncertainty in experts' subjective judgments. The proposed Cloud Delphi Method (CDM) describes experts' opinions by Cloud model and we aggregate the experts' Cloud opinions by synthetic algorithm and weighted average algorithm. Another key point of CDM is to stabilize and accommodate the individual fuzzy estimates by the defined stability rules rather than having to force them to converge, or reduce. The Cloud opinions and aggregation results can be exhibited in a graphically way leading experts to judge intuitively and it can decrease the number of repetitive surveys and/or interviews. Moreover, it is more scientific and easier to represent experts' opinion base on Cloud model which can combine fuzziness and uncertainty well. A numerical example is examined to demonstrate applicability and implementation process of CDM.