A fuzzy logic approach for dealing with qualitative quality characteristics of a process

Dealing with qualitative information is quite common in real life problems. So far research focused on developing process adjustment models only for quantitative data. This paper presents a process adjustment approach of a deteriorating process in which quality characteristics are expressed in qualitative form. This approach jointly determines the initial setting of process mean and production run. A fuzzy logic is adopted to implement the process adjustment approach. The features of this approach are lack of mathematical complexity and ability to deal with qualitative data. Detailed implementation of the fuzzy process adjustment model is also given in this paper. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.