Title: Combining OR/MS and expert systems for inventory management

Authors: Subhashish Samaddar, Arun Rai, Srinarayan Sharma

Addresses: Department of Management, Bryant College, Smithfield, USA. ' Department of Management, College of Business Administration, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA. ' Department of Management, College of Business Administration, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA

Abstract: This paper identifies the shortcomings of considering OR/MS and heuristic solution techniques, in isolation from each other, in problem-solving. A survey of Expert Systems (ESs) in the Inventory Management (IM) problem domain reveals that the synergistic potential of these two approaches is not being exploited. A decomposition of the Knowledge-Base (KB) is proposed to include essential knowledge elements for effective integration of these solution techniques. The suggested decomposition is used to develop a prototype system using Turbo Prolog in the IM problem domain. Grounds for future research and implications for practice are identified.

Keywords: expert systems; inventory management; heuristics; operations research; management science; OR/MS; knowledge-based systems; KBS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1993.062623

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1993 Vol.6 No.2/3, pp.155 - 162

Published online: 10 Jun 2014 *

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