The Application Of Fuzzy Logic For Managerial Decision Making Processes

This book addresses the latest research and applications of fuzzy management methods for business decisions. It showcases a broad set of applications and discusses topics such as measures for the quality of analytics outcomes in big data environments; how fuzzy management methods support the inclusion of human thinking and human behavior in decision making processes; how to generate better results with fuzzy management methods in cases of imprecise information; new personalization concepts enabled by fuzzy logic for the offering of customized products and services especially in the electronic market; and lastly the application of fuzzy analysis for executives using natural rather than computer language. The combination of research papers and case studies makes it a valuable resource both for researchers and practitioners in the digital economy.

This book starts with the basic concepts of Fuzzy Logic: the membership function, the intersection and the union of fuzzy sets, fuzzy numbers, and the extension principle underlying the algorithmic operations. Several chapters are devoted to applications of Fuzzy Logic in Operations Research: PERT planning with uncertain activity durations, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with vague preferential statements, and Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) with weighted degrees of satisfaction. New items are: Fuzzy PERT using activity durations with triangular membership functions, Fuzzy SMART with a sensitivity analysis based upon Fuzzy Logic, the Additive and the Multiplicative AHP with a similar feature, ELECTRE using the ideas of the AHP and SMART, and a comparative study of the ideal-point methods for MOO. Finally, earlier studies of colour perception illustrate the attempts to find a physiological basis for the set-theoretical and the algorithmic operations in Fuzzy Logic. The last chapter also discusses some key issues in linguistic categorization and the prospects of Fuzzy Logic as a multi-disciplinary research activity. Audience: Researchers and students working in applied mathematics, operations research, management science, business administration, econometrics, industrial engineering, information systems, artificial intelligence, mathematical psychology, and psycho-physics.

This edited book presents the state-of-the-art of applying fuzzy logic to managerial decision-making processes in areas such as fuzzy-based portfolio management, recommender systems, performance assessment and risk analysis, among others. Presenting the latest research, with a strong focus on applications and case studies, it is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, project leaders and managers wanting to apply or improve their fuzzy-based skills.

This book shows how the application of fuzzy logic can benefit management, group decision making, strategic planning, supply chain management and other business imperatives. The theoretical analysis is fully supported by real-life case studies. The book develops themes that businesses can use to master effectiveness and quality, work with flexibility, and support continuous learning in the organization and the individual.

In the two decades since its inception by L. Zadeh, the theory of fuzzy sets has matured into a wide-ranging collection of concepts, models, and tech niques for dealing with complex phenomena which do not lend themselves to analysis by classical methods based on probability theory and bivalent logic. Nevertheless, a question which is frequently raised by the skeptics is: Are there, in fact, any significant problem areas in which the use of the theory of fuzzy sets leads to results which could not be obtained by classical methods? The approximately 5000 publications in this area, which are scattered over many areas such as artificial intelligence, computer science, control engineering, decision making, logic, operations research, pattern recognition, robotics and others, provide an affirmative answer to this question. In spite of the large number of publications, good and comprehensive textbooks which could facilitate the access of newcomers to this area and support teaching were missing until recently. To help to close this gap and to provide a textbook for courses in fuzzy set theory which can also be used as an introduction to this field, the first volume ofthis book was published in 1985 [Zimmermann 1985 b]. This volume tried to cover fuzzy set theory and its applications as extensively as possible. Applications could, therefore, only be described to a limited extent and not very detailed.

Managerial Decisions in hierarchy organizations, such as the various manufacturing and service companies, are difficult to formalize and even more difficult to optimize. By exploring the typical fuzziness, vagueness, or the "not-well-defined" nature of such organizations, this book presents the first comprehensive treatment of this difficult and practically important problem. The advantages of the proposed fuzzy interactive approach are that it significantly reduces computational requirements. Equally, the representation of the system is made more realistic through the recognition of the inherent fuzziness of such large organizations. Both the multi-ploy and the game-like decision making processes, also known as multi-level programming and the fuzzy interactive approach, are discussed in detail. The emphasis is on numerical algorithms and numerous examples are solved and compared. The concepts of fuzzy set and fuzzy linguistic representation, which form an integral part of any managerial decision, are also discussed.

This edited book presents the state-of-the-art of applying fuzzy logic to managerial decision-making processes in areas such as fuzzy-based portfolio management, recommender systems, performance assessment and risk analysis, among others. Presenting the latest research, with a strong focus on applications and case studies, it is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, project leaders and managers wanting to apply or improve their fuzzy-based skills.

This introduction to fuzzy set theory and its multitude of applications seeks to balance the character of the book with the dynamic nature of the research. This edition includes new chapters on possibility theory, fuzzy logic and approximate reasoning, expert systems, fuzzy control, fuzzy data analysis, decision making and fuzzy set models in operations research. Existing material has been updated, and extended exercises are included.