A practical review and taxonomy of fuzzy expert systems: methods and applications
Benchmarking: An International Journal
ISSN: 1463-5771
Article publication date: 24 September 2019
Issue publication date: 23 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Expert systems are computer-based systems that mimic the logical processes of human experts or organizations to give advice in a specific domain of knowledge. Fuzzy expert systems use fuzzy logic to handle uncertainties generated by imprecise, incomplete and/or vague information. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have carefully reviewed 281 journal publications and 149 conference proceedings published over the past 37 years since 1982. The authors grouped the journal publications and conference proceedings separately accordingly to the methods, application domains, tools and inference systems.
Findings
The authors have synthesized the findings and proposed useful suggestions for future research directions. The authors show that the most common use of fuzzy expert systems is in the medical field.
Originality/value
Fuzzy logic can be used to manage uncertainty in expert systems and solve problems that cannot be solved effectively with conventional methods. In this study, the authors present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems which could be useful for practicing managers developing expert systems under uncertainty.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful comments and suggestions. Dr Madjid Tavana is grateful for the partial support received from the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR19-13946S) for this research.
Citation
Tavana, M. and Hajipour, V. (2020), "A practical review and taxonomy of fuzzy expert systems: methods and applications", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 81-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-04-2019-0178
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited