Behavior Analysis With an Evolutionary Game Theory Approach for Procurement Bid Evaluation Involving Technical and Business Experts

Reverse auctions with multiple attributes have been extensively applied for centralized purchasing of large enterprises and governments. This paper focuses on the bid evaluation behaviors of referee experts and employs an evolutionary game approach to improve the fairness and reliability of bid evaluation. First, the bid evaluation process and existing problems in the mechanism are described. Second, a static game model is constructed to analyze the conditions that are necessary for achieving a long-term cooperative equilibrium between business and technical groups. Third, some evolutionary paths and factors influencing bid evaluation behaviors are analyzed, and then a simulation system is developed based on the evolution process and run several times on a MATLAB GUI platform. The simulation results explicitly make a wider gamut of decision-making parameters as well as start-up variants on initial conditions that determine further evolution. The methods and results presented in this paper can provide decision support for administrative departments in the bid evaluations of centralized purchasing. Those bodies can then choose from the best existing management policies to guide the referee experts’ behaviors into the desired channels and toward optimal outcomes. A more judicious bidding evaluations process may result.