Second International Conference on Computer and Network Technology
Computational Intelligence-based Intelligent Business Intelligence System:
Concept and Framework
Jui-Yu Wu
Department of Business Administration
Lunghwa University of Science and Technology
Taoyuan, Taiwan
jywu@mail.lhu.edu.tw
Abstract—Decision making is an important task for enterprise
managers, and is typically based on various data sources
derived from information systems, such as enterprise resource
planning, supply chain management and customer relationship
management. Numerous business intelligence tools (BI) thus
have been developed to support decision making. Some existing
BI tools have several limitations, for example lacking data
analysis and visualization capabilities. To increase the data
analysis capability of BI tools, this study focuses on efficient
data mining tools and presents an intelligent BI system
framework based on many computational intelligence
paradigms, including a predictor tool based on neuro-
computing (cerebellar model articulation controller neural
network, CMAC NN), a classifier tool based on neuro-
computing (CMAC NN) and optimizer tools based on
evolutionary computing and artificial life (such as real-coded
genetic algorithm and artificial immune system). The predictor
tool can be used to make predictions or conduct time series
forecasting, the classifier tool can be applied to solve
classification tasks, and the optimizer tools can be employed to
optimize the parameter settings of the predictor and classifier
tools. The proposed BI system can potentially be considered as
an efficient data analysis tool for supporting business decisions.
Keywords- business intelligence; computational intelligence;
data mining; decision making
I. INTRODUCTION
In response to global competition, enterprises are
increasingly employing information technology to conduct
business electronically. Thus, various information systems,
such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain
management (SCM) and customer relationship management
(CRM), are increasingly used to gather business transaction,
supplier and customer data. Those various operational and
transaction data can be transformed into information and
then knowledge by using business intelligence (BI) tools.
Enterprises decision makers make better business decisions
based on systematic acquisition, collation, analysis,
interpretation and exploitation of information. Figure 1
displays the BI components, which comprise online
analytical process (OLAP), knowledge management,
CRM/database marketing, database mining, visualization,
decision support system/executive information system, data
mining (DM) and geographic information system (GIS) [1].
Wingyan et al. [2] indicates that existing BI tools suffer
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DOI 10.1109/ICCNT.2010.23
several limitations, such as poor data analysis and
visualization capabilities. Many advanced BI tools have been
developed to overcome weaknesses, including HP Openview
DecisionCenter [3] and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 [4].
Moreover, Michalewicz et al. [5, 6] introduced a scheme of
an adaptive BI system, which combines optimization,
prediction and adaptability. The adaptive BI system is
capable of answering two questions: (1) “What is likely to
happen in the future ?” and (2) “What is the best decision
right now ?”.
Online
Analytical CRM/DB
Process
Data Mining
Marketing
(OLAP)
Database Business
Visualization
Mining Intelligence
Decision Support
System/ Geographic
Knowledge
Executive
Management
Information
Information System
System
Figure 1. The components of BI
Computational intelligence (CI) is an emerging paradigm
of information processing focused on intelligent systems
design [7]. The CI family consists of granular computing,
neuro-computing (NC), evolutionary computing (EC) and
artificial life (AL). Figure 2 shows the CI family tree [8].
These CI methods have been applied to many issues, such as
marketing, e-commerce, financial management, decision
making, classification, time series forecasting and
optimization [9-12]. Thus, these CI methods can be used to
develop intelligent BI systems.
This study presents a framework of an intelligent BI
system based on many CI paradigms, such as NC, EC and
AL. The proposed BI system increases the data analysis
capability by using efficient DM tools based on cerebellar
model articulation controller neural network (CMAC NN)
for prediction and classification [10, 13, 14], and simplifies
the manipulation of these DM tools by using real-coded
genetic algorithm (RGA) [12] and artificial immune system BI systems have been used to many application fields,
(AIS) [11] to optimize the parameter settings of the DM such as ERP, SCM, CRM and human resource management
tools. Section 4 describes the framework of the proposed [16].
intelligent BI system.
III. COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Figure 4 shows the relationship between artificial
Computational Intelligence
(CI)
intelligence (AI) and CI [8]. The AI techniques involve
expert system, agent, natural language processing, robot,
machine vision, speech recognition etc. Probabilistic
Granular Computing
Neuro-computing Evolutionary
Artificial Life (AL)
reasoning and belief networks are the intersection of AI and
(NC) Computing
CI. The difference between CI and AI is that CI is an area of
Fuzzy Sets
fundamental and applied research involving numerical
Supervised Algorithm Genetic Programming Artificial Immune System
information processing while AI is a symbolic information
processing technique [17]. The members of the CI family,
Rough Sets
Unsupervised Algorithm Genetic Algorithm such as fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithm (GA) and neural
network (NN) and evolutionary programming (EP), can
work independently to solve interesting problems and
Probabilistic Reasoning Reinforcement Algorithm Evolution Strategies
cooperate with each other [18-20]. In the past decade, the
field of swarm intelligence (SI) is rapidly growing. SI has
Evolutionary
Programming
two branches, such as particle swarm optimization and ant
colony optimization. An AL is an emerging field based on
Ant Colony Optimization
assumptions regarding physical and chemical laws [8]. This
Swarm Intelligence
study focuses on NN, GA and artificial life, which are
Particle Swarm Optimization
described in the following subsections.
Figure 2. The CI family tree

Computational
Artificial Intelligence
II. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Intelligence

Li et al. [15] indicate that BI comprises concepts, Expert System Probabilistic

Fuzzy
Logic
methods and process to improve business decisions, which Agent Reasoning Genetic
Natural Language Processing Algorithm Neural
employ information from multiple sources, and use Robot Network

experience and assumptions to develop an accurate Machine Vision

Speech Recognition Belief
Evolutionary
Swarm
Ant colony
optimization
understanding of business dynamics. BI has several Network
Programming
Intelligence

objectives [5]: (1) to gather data from various sources; (2) to Particle Swarm
optimization
transform this data into information and then knowledge; (3)
to provide a friendly graphic interface to display this Artificial
Life
knowledge. Figure 3 illustrates the BI process, which works
to transform data into information, and then knowledge using Figure 4. The relationship between AI and CI
analytical tools, such as DM, OLAP, visualization etc.
Finally, the generated knowledge can be used to support
business decisions. A. Neuro-computing
The NNs perform nonlinear mapping between input and
output variables and adjust the weights in the network
Analytical
tools
topology using learning algorithms, which are supervised,
DM
unsupervised and reinforcement. Supervised learning
Internal data
algorithms minimize the difference between actual and
OLAP
desired outputs for input patterns. Supervised NNs can be
Extraction
applied in prediction and classification. Unlike supervised
Data
acquisition
Transformation
Loading
(ETL)
Data
warehouse
Data
preparation
Information Knowledge Decision
learning algorithms, unsupervised learning algorithms are
GIS
used to discover input pattern features without supervisor
instances. Therefore, unsupervised NNs are used to perform
External data
Visualization
clustering. Reinforcement algorithm is best applied where an
agent learns the best action based on current environmental
conditions by providing feedback in the form of a
Figure 3. The BI Process
reinforcement signal.

335
B. Evolutionary Computing
The EC family has many members, such as evolution
strategy (ES), EP, GA, SI and genetic programming. Bäck et
al. [21] surveyed and compared the features of ES, EP and
GA, where GA is the most popular stochastic global
optimization method. GA is a population-based technique. A
population comprises individuals, are called chromosomes.
Chromosomes are used to represent a solution to an interest
problem. The GA employs three basic operators, namely
selection, crossover and mutation. The selection operator
creates a mating pool, based on fitness, from the current
population. Individuals with high fitness are selected for this
mating pool. The crossover operator generates offspring
from parents in the mating pool, and these offspring then
comprise information on their parents. Applying the
mutation operator increases the diversity of individuals.
C. Artificial Life
The AIS is an example of AL. AIS approaches mimic the
process by which the immune system learns, memorizes,
identifies and destroys foreign materials such as viruses,
pathogens and bacteria (called antigens). Clonal selection
and idiotypic network theories [22, 23] are used to develop
various AIS approaches, which are commonly based on
population-based or network-based immune algorithms [24],
and have been successfully applied to continuous and
combinational optimization problems [11, 22, 25, 26].
D. Optimization
Various scientific and engineering problems, particularly
production planning and chemical control, can be expressed
as constrained global optimization (CGO) problems, as
follows:
Minimize f (x) (1)
subject to gm (x) d 0, m 1, 2,, M (2)
hk (x) 0, k 1, 2,, K (3)
xnl d xn d xnu , n 1, 2,, N (4)
where f (x) is an objective function; gm (x) represents a
set of m nonlinear inequality constraints; hk (x) denotes a
set of k nonlinear equality constraints; x represents a vector
of decision variables with real values, and each decision
variable xn is constrained by its lower and upper bounds
[ xnl , xnu ], where xnl and xnu are the lower and upper
boundaries of decision variables xn .
An unconstrained global optimization (UGO) problem is
a special case CGO problem. An UGO problem only
considers Eqs. (1) and (4). In the past decade, CI methods
have been widely applied to solve UGO and CGO problems
[11, 25, 27-29].
IV. FRAMEWORK OF THE PROPOSED INTELLIGENT BI
SYSTEM
This study develops an intelligent BI system based on
several CI methods. Figure 5 shows the scheme of the
336
proposed intelligent BI system. The proposed BI system
focuses on developing efficient DM tools. The roles of the
optimizer, predictor and classifier are described in the
following subsections.
data
data preparation
information
DM
data analysis tools
classifier optimizer predictor
NC- CMAC NN AL- AIS NC- CMAC NN
parameter optimization
EC- RGA
parameter optimization
knownledge
decision
Figure 5. The proposed intelligent BI system
A. Optimizer
Wu et al. [12] presented a RGA with a static penalty
function for solving CGO problems (such as generalized
polynomial programming problems), showing that the RGA
can find the global solution for CGO problems. Furthermore,
Wu [11] developed an AIS approach with an adaptive
penalty function to solve CGO problems, indicating that the
AIS can converge to a global solution for a CGO problem.
To simplify the manipulation of predictor and classifier tools,
the intelligent BI system uses the RGA and AIS approaches
to optimize the parameter settings of the predictor and
classifier.
B. Predictor
The predictor tool can be used for prediction and time
series forecasting. A forecasting model is created by using
independent variables to estimate the future value of a
dependent variable, such as in the regression analysis and
exponential smoothing approaches. Future values can be
estimated through prediction using history patterns (data
patterns).
In time series forecasting, the historical patterns of time
series are sorted based on time. Conventional methods for
time series analysis include ARIMA and the spectral
analytical approach [30, 31]. However, the predictor
employed a CMAC NN. Wu [10, 13] presented a CMAC NN
for application to chaotic time series problems, indicating
that the proposed method involved acceptable number of
training and generalized errors. Moreover, Wu also
recommended the interval range of the parameter settings for
the CMAC NN. Generally, these parameter settings can be
manipulated by trial and error. Fortunately, optimization of
the parameter settings of the CMAC NN can be considered
as an UGO problem that minimizes root mean square error
(training error). Thus, the RGA and AIS in the optimizer can
be used to solve the UGO problem.
C. Classifier
Classification problems assign an instance to a
predefined class based on various features. Many problems
in science, business, industry and medicine, including
bankruptcy prediction, medical diagnosis, handwritten
character recognition and speech recognition, can be
considered as classification problems [32]. Wu et al. [14]
designed a CMAC NN classifier with multiple input and
multiple output and applied it to benchmark classification
problems (such as diabetes and glass datasets taken from the
PROBEN1 originating from the UCI Machine Learning
Repository). Numerical results indicate that the proposed
CMAC NN classifier performed efficiently when applied to
the tested classification problems. To optimize the
parameters of the CMAC NN, the RGA and AIS approaches
can be applied to solve an UGO problem that minimizes
classification error.
V. CONCLUSION
This study introduces the concept and framework of a CI-
based intelligent BI system with a special focus on efficient
DM tools. The proposed BI system comprises a predictor,
classifier and optimizer. The proposed intelligent BI system
can be considered as a tool for making business decisions.
The system may has the potential to solve these problems,
such as demand forecasting for SCM and problems in
classifying credit cards according to credit-worthiness in the
context of CRM. Future works can apply the proposed BI
system to real world cases.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the National Science
Council of the Republic of China, Taiwan for financially
supporting this research under Contract No. NSC 98-2221-E-
262-014-.
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