Evolutionary algorithm for improving decision tree with global discretization in manufacturing

Due to the recent advance in the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) in manufacturing, the vast amount of data from sensors has triggered the need for leveraging such big data for fault detection. In particular, interpretable machine learning techniques, such as tree-based algorithms, have drawn attention to the need to implement reliable manufacturing systems, and identify the root causes of faults. However, despite the high interpretability of decision trees, tree-based models make a trade-off between accuracy and interpretability. In order to improve the tree’s performance while maintaining its interpretability, an evolutionary algorithm for discretization of multiple attributes, called Decision tree Improved by Multiple sPLits with Evolutionary algorithm for Discretization (DIMPLED), is proposed. The experimental results with two real-world datasets from sensors showed that the decision tree improved by DIMPLED outperformed the performances of single-decision-tree models (C4.5 and CART) that are widely used in practice, and it proved competitive compared to the ensemble methods, which have multiple decision trees. Even though the ensemble methods could produce slightly better performances, the proposed DIMPLED has a more interpretable structure, while maintaining an appropriate performance level.