Group consensus reaching based on a combination of expert weight and expert reliability

•A group consensus method based on expert weight and reliability is proposed.•Expert reliability in multi-round of group analysis and discussion is constructed.•Hybrid weight is measured dynamically based on expert reliability.•Convergence of group consensus is accelerated based on hybrid weight.•Evaluation of safety performance is investigated using the proposed method. Multi-criteria group decision making (MCGDM) as a key module in a group decision support system has attracted much attention. Different experts in MCGDM may hold different decision interests. To generate the solution that is accepted by most experts, a group consensus reaching process has been widely applied in MCGDM along with multiple rounds of group analysis and discussion (GAD). How to characterize the dynamic variation of experts’ opinions in the above process is a critical issue. To solve this problem, expert reliability is defined by measuring the dynamic variation of the support degree from other experts in GAD. By considering expert reliability and expert weight simultaneously, a group consensus measure is proposed and a group feedback mechanism is constructed to accelerate the convergence of group consensus. The dynamic variation of experts’ opinions, especially their non-cooperative behaviors, can be well addressed by using the constructed feedback mechanism. The proposed group consensus reaching process including the group consensus measure and feedback mechanism is applied to solve a problem of evaluating the safety performance of an enterprise located in Changzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, China, in order to verify its applicability and effectiveness in MCGDM.