An application of fuzzy logic on importing medicines

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we consider a decision-making problem on import of a particular medicine from a foreign country where there are several alternatives for choice of the country from which the medicine can be imported. We use fuzzy logic for the above purpose. The company plans to have contracts of import for a considerably long period of time. Due to that the factors to be taken into consideration in the decision process can only be estimated with uncertainties for which they are represented as fuzzy variables. In the decision-making process, particular use is made of the ranking of fuzzy numbers in which index of optimization plays a determining role. We present a protocol based on fuzzy logic for the above purpose. A feature of the protocol that distinguishes it is the absence of defuzzification procedure which reduces the computational complexity of the scheme.

KEYWORDS:

• Pharmaceutical company
• production unit
• medicine import
• fuzzy logic
• generalized trapezoidal fuzzy number
• fuzzy cost
• ranking index
• global pharmaceutical market

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions for this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.