OPERATIONS-RESEARCH APPLICATIONS IN TAIWAN - A LINGUISTIC APPROACH

This paper discusses the utilization of specified Operations Research (OR) techniques and the application areas of OR in Taiwan's companies. Since the data solicited from the business organizations are represen ted by fuzzy linguistic terms, a linguistic approach is used to transf orm the data to total utility values for ranking. The results show tha t decision making with computers and statistical forecasting are the t wo most frequently used OR techniques, while Markovian decision proces ses and queuing models are the two least used ones. Regarding the appl ication areas, manufacturing firms consider production whereas service companies consider finance as the major area for application. Both ag ree that human resource is the area receiving the least attention. Wit h the linguistic approach of this study, more valuable results are der ived. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.