The Comprehensive Application Study of GRA and ISM in System Structure Analysis

Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) is an effective approach to analyze the complex system structure. The adjacency matrix represents the relations between and among system elements and the system digraph can be drawn by deduction of the reachability matrix. The adjacency matrix is usually built by experts´ experience. Because the process does not take the corresponding data of system elements into account, the adjacency matrix is lack of objectivity and accuracy. In this paper, the adjacency matrix is built using grey relational analysis (GRA). The grey incidence matrix is derived considering the relevant behavioral sequences as referential behavior sequence in turn and the system digraph is drawn using ISM. The paper gives the theoretical deduction and the specific calculation steps of the above approach. The validity of the method is verified by the application of China´s water transport system.