  Cat-SD is a multiple criteria decision aiding method for dealing with nominal
classification problems. Actions are assessed according to multiple criteria
and assigned to one or more categories. A set of reference actions is used for
defining each category. The assignment of an action to a given category depends
on the comparison of the action to each reference set according to likeness
thresholds. Distinct sets of criteria weights, interaction coefficients, and
likeness thresholds can be defined per category. We propose to apply Multiple
Criteria Hierarchy Process (MCHP) to Cat-SD. An adapted MCHP is proposed to
take into account possible interaction effects between criteria structured in a
hierarchical way. On the basis of the known deck of cards method, we also
consider an imprecise elicitation of parameters permitting to take into account
interactions and antagonistic effects between criteria. The elicitation
procedure we are proposing can be applied to any Electre method. With the
purpose of exploring the assignments obtained by Cat-SD considering possible
sets of parameters, we propose to apply the Stochastic Multicriteria
Acceptability Analysis (SMAA). The SMAA methodology allows to draw statistical
conclusions on the classification of the actions. The proposed method,
SMAA-hCat-SD, helps the decision maker to check the effects of the variation of
parameters on the classification at different levels of the hierarchy. We
propose also a procedure, based on the concept of loss function, to obtain a
final classification fulfilling some requirements given by the decision maker
and taking into account the hierarchy of criteria and the probabilistic
assignments obtained applying SMAA. Also this procedure can be applied to any
classification Electre method.
