A fuzzy expert system for business management

Nowadays firms are required to reach high levels of specialisation in order to increase their competitiveness in complex markets. Knowledge management plays a fundamental role in this process as the correct implementation of strategies is determined by the information transfer and dissemination within the organisation. In this paper, a fuzzy expert system focused on increasing accuracy and quality of the knowledge for decision making is designed. A model based on fuzzy rules to simulate the behavior of the firms, is presented under the assumption of determined input parameters previously detected and an algorithm is developed to achieve the minimal structure of the model. The result is a fuzzy expert system tool, called ESROM, which gives valuable information to help managers to improve the achievement of the strategic objectives of the company. A main contribution of this work it that the system is general and can be adapted to different scenarios. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.