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Real-Time Order Scheduling in Credit Factories: A Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning Approach

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Intelligent Computing and Block Chain (FICC 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1385))

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Abstract

In recent years, consumer credit has flourished in China. A credit factory is an important mode to speed up the loan application process. Order scheduling in credit factories belongs to the np-hard problem and it has great significance for credit factory efficiency. In this work, we formulate order scheduling in credit factories as a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) task. In the proposed MARL algorithm, we explore a new reward mechanism, including reward calculation and reward assignment, which is suitable for this task. Moreover, we use a convolutional auto-encoder to generate multi-agent state. To avoid physical costs during MARL training, we establish a simulator, named Virtual Credit Factory, to pre-train the MARL algorithm. Through experiments in Virtual Credit Factory and an A/B test in a real application, we compare the performance of the proposed MARL approach and some classic heuristic approaches. In both cases, the results demonstrate that the MARL approach has better performance and strong robustness.

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Correspondence to Ning Jia .

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Huang, C., Cui, R., Deng, J., Jia, N. (2021). Real-Time Order Scheduling in Credit Factories: A Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning Approach. In: Gao, W., et al. Intelligent Computing and Block Chain. FICC 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1385. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1160-5_36

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1160-5_36

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-1159-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-1160-5

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