201
Invited Review
Using fuzzy sets in operational research
H.-J. Z I M M E R M A N
R WTH Aachen. Germany, Fed. Rep.
Received December 1982
During the last four decades a large number of mainly
mathematical tools have been developed in and for Operational
Reserach. They are primarily devices to find optimal solutions
after a problem has been modelled formally. Hardly any new
tools have been developed for proper modelling of problems
which are not well-structured and which can not easily be cast
into classical mathematical models. Fuzzy Set Theory as pro-
posed by L. Zadeh in 1965 promises to bridge part of this gap.
It is much more adaptable to different problem structures and
better suited to model human evaluation and decision making
processes, than classical mathematics. This paper will primarily
focus attention on four questions:
Why Fuzzy Sets in OR?
What are Fuzzy Sets?
Where can they be used? and
How are they being used?
1. Why fuzzy sets in operational research?
1.1. Vague phenomena, vague relations and the
modelling of problems
Operational Research covers a number of areas
of quite different character. In all of these areas
modelling is of prime concern to Operational Re-
searchers. W h e n applying O R - m e t h o d s to en-
gineering problems, for instance, the problems to
be modelled and solved are normally quite clear
cut, well described, crisp. They can generally be
modelled by using classical mathematics which is
dichotomous in character. If vagueness enters, it is
normally of the stochastic kind which can properly
be modelled by using probability theory. This is
true for m a n y areas such as inventory theory,
traffic control, scheduling, etc. in which probabil-
ity theory is applied via queuing theory.
North-Holland
European Journal of Operational Research 13 (1983) 201-216
0 3 7 7 - 2 2 1 7 / 8 3 / $ 0 3 . 0 0 © 1983 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)
There are other fields, however, in which the
description of problems is also vague, but in which
the vagueness is of a different kind than random-
ness. One of the most important areas of this kind
is probably that of decision making: here the
h u m a n factor enters with all its vaguenesses of
perception, of subjectivity, of attitudes of goals
and of conceptions. To use a modelling language
which is dichotomous in this area seems far from
adequate.
The language is, roughly speaking, the link be-
tween the thinking of h u m a n beings, the object
system, which is to be modelled, and the model
itself. Statements in a model are formulated by
means of linguistic expressions. That means that
the model language sematically and systematically
has to be well suited to grasp those aspects of
reality which are included in the model; the per-
spective of a scientific theory is already contained
in its liguistic terms.
Let us look at the appearance of scientific theo-
ries and of practical problems which we want to
model: Most scientific systems do not have a clear
distinction between logical and descriptive con-
stants. In fact a science seems to be written in a
mixture of everyday language describing experi-
ments, mathematical equations describing calcula-
tions, and semiformulized deduction if the science
is sufficiently advanced to contain a theoretical
part [2].
" T h e problems of management exist only in the
minds of managers and in the minds of their
advisers. There is, therefore, a completely subjec-
tive personal basis to our science. It is not the case
that the c o m p a n y has an inventory problem in the
sense that if you visit it you can see it there in a
concrete form .... Even within our own minds as
we appraoch a practical problem, we will be un-
sure how to show which form of model is likely to
be optimal .... Since the problems as seen in each
of our minds will be different and mutual com-
parison will be impossible, it follows that we have
202 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
a significant, even dangerous, freedom in the way
in which we select the models which will represent
decision making situations." [32]
On the other hand a mathematical model is
defined to be a collection of statements about a set
of variables from which the truth or falsity of
other statements can be deduced.
The utter importance of modelling language is
recognized by Apostel, when he says: " T h e re-
lationship between formal languages and domains
in which they have models must in the empirical
sciences necessarily be guided by two considera-
tions that are by no means as important in the
formal sciences:
(a) The relationship between the language and
the domain must be closer because they are in a
sense produced through and for each other;
(b) Extensions of formalism and models must
necessarily be considered because everything intro-
duced is introduced to make progress in the de-
scription of the objects studied. Therefore, we
should say that the formalization of the concept of
approximate constructive necessary satisfaction is
the main tasks of semantic study of models in the
empirical sciences". [2]
Because we request that a modelling language is
unequivocal and nonredundant on one hand and,
at the same time, catches semantically in its terms
all that is important and relevant for the model we
seem to have the following problem: Human
thinking and feeling, in which ideas, pictures,
images, and value systems are formed, first of all
has certainly more concepts or comprehensions
than our daily language has words. If one consid-
ers, in addition, that for a number of notions we
use several words (synonyms) then it becomes
quite obvious that the power (in a set theoretic
sense) of our thinking and feeling is much higher
than the power of a living language. If in turn we
compare the power of a living language with the
language of logic then we will find that logic is
even poorer. Therefore, it seems to be impossible
to guarantee a one to one mapping of problems
and systems in our imagination and a model using
a mathematical or logical language. One might
object that logical symbols can arbitrarily be filled
with semantic contents and that by doing so the
logical language becomes much richer. It will be
shown later that it is very often extremely difficult
to appropriately assign semantic contents to logical
symbols.
The usefulness of the mathematical language
for modelling purposes is undisputed. However,
there are limits of the usefulness and of the possi-
bility of using the classical mathematical language,
based on the dichotomous character of set theory,
to models in particular systems and phenomena in
the social sciences: "There is no idea or proposi-
tion in the field, which can not be put into
mathematical language, although the utility of
doing so can very well be doubted" [10].
Schwartz [36] brings up another argument
against the unreflected use of mathematics, if he
states: An argument which is only convincing if it
is precise loses all its force if the assumptions on
which it is based are slightly changed, while an
argument, which is convincing but imprecise may
well be stable under small perturbations of its
underlying axioms".
By now it should have become clear, that tradi-
tional (crisp) mathematics is quite well suited to
model either crisp problems or problems in which
the vagueness is of the stochastic (probabilistic)
type. These types of problems are very common in
natural sciences and engineering. They are by far
not as frequent in social sciences and in particular
in decision making.
Vagueness of the above mentioned type in-
dudes phenomena which are 'intrinsicly' vague,
such as "good labour relations", "acceptable prof-
its", "dependable forecasts", "good schedules". It
also includes relationships such as " I f we have a
good management, we can survive hard times",
" I n growing markets competition is less fierce
than in a recession" or " T h e available capacities
should not be excessively used". It is not difficult
to see that classical mathematics is not a proper
tool to model these kinds of phenomena or rela-
tionships properly and that a new modelling tool
would be quite desirable.
1.2. Informational vagueness
Another crucial factor in modelling reality is
the quality and the quantity of data one can
expect to obtain about the problem to be mod-
elled. The saying 'garbage in-garbage out' is well
known and speaks for itself. The following quota-
tion from Josiah Stamp [38] points in the same
direction: "Governments are very keen in amass-
ing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise
them to the n th power, take the cube root and
 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
make wonderful diagrams. But what you must
never forget is that every one of these figures
comes in the first instace from the village watch-
man who just puts down what he damn pleases".
It must, however, be born in mind that the
effort put into deriving and obtaining numerical
values or relations must be geared to the value of
the model and that when data are scarce it may
still be useful to draw conclusions from not fully
satisfactory input data. In this case a tentative
look at the dependence of the solution from the
quality of the input data may be very advisable.
Probably nobody will object to the statement
that poor or insufficient data are a barrier for
good modelling. The contrary, however, can also
be true. An abundance of information can also be
the cause for vagueness: In day-to-day conversa-
tion people use very effectively terms such as
"pleasant personality", "comfortable houses" or
"creditworthiness" as labels for sets of objects
which could be described uniquely and crisply if a
large number of 'descriptors' were used. Since the
human information storage- and processing capac-
ity is very limited, however, all the necessary de-
scriptors of such a set are not consciously used
when communicating with other persons. The de-
scription and conception of such a set--which we
will call 'subjective category'--changes form a
Financial
basis
Property minus Othernet Income minus I
long-term property expenses
debts
Fig. 1. Concept hierarchy of creditworthiness.
203
crisp set to a set with vague boundaries. The
degree of membership of single objects to this set
varies gradually. Partitioning such a set ap-
propriately into smaller subsets would certainly
decrease the number of descriptors which are nec-
essary to obtain crisp subsets. For illustrative pur-
poses we shall use the term 'creditworthiness':
This 'subjective category' (one might prefer to
think of creditworthy people) can be subdivided
into two major determinants, financial basis and
personality, which again are fuzzy but probably
less than creditworthiness. By further subdivisions
we might end up with a hierarchy of 'subjective
categories' and 'subcategories' which in our minds
are the better described the lower in the hierarchy
they appear (see Fig. 1).
Putting it the other way round: The higher in
the hierarchy a term appears the fuzzier is its
description.
1.3. Heuristic algorithms
Whenever a problem or the model of it are too
complex to be solved exactly with acceptable ef-
fort one turns to the use of heuristic algorithms.
Heuristics normally either reduce the solution
space which is considered in searching for an
optimal solution or make the algorithm faster and
Credit- 1
worthiness
Personality
Business
behaviour
I
Continuity Economic Conformation with
Motivations ] Lthinking social & economic
of margin
standards
204 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
by doing so lose the certainty that an optimal
solution is really found. A human decision maker
without adequate EDP-software and hardware at
his disposal very often resorts to such an approach
and achieves quite reasonable results. His results
are frequently at least good enough from a practi-
cal point of view and often the decision procedure
is more stable than a sophisticated mathematical
control algorithm [26].
One could also call this procedure 'approxi-
mate" rather than 'exact'. Classical mathematics is
often badly suited to model these algorithms; ap-
proximate reasoning seems to be more ap-
propriate, How these types of approaches can be
implemented by use of fuzzy sets will be illustrated
in Section 3.2.
2. What are fuzzy sets?
2.1. Fuzzy set theory, possibility theory, probability
theory
Recognizing the shortcomings of traditional
mathematical models in some areas L. Zadeh sug-
gested in the mid-sixties [46] the notion of a fuzzy
set. He defined a fuzzy set as follows:
Definition. If X = (x) is a collection of objects
denoted generically by x, then a fuzzy set A in X is
a set of ordered pairs,
A = (x,
~ ( x ) is called the membership function or grade
of membership of x in A which maps X to the
membership-space M. (When M contains only the
two points 0 and 1, A is nonfuzzy and #A(X) is
identical to the characteristic function of a non-
fuzzy set.)
/z(. ) is a function the range of which is a subset
of the nonnegative real numbers and has the prop-
erty that the supremum of this set is finite.
Example. Let X = (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70,
80, 90, 100, 110) be possible speeds (mph) at which
cars can cruise over long distances. Then the fuzzy
set A of "comfortable speeds for long distances"
may be defined by a certain individual as
A = ((30, 0.7), (40, 0.75), (50, 0.8), (60, 0.8),
(70, 1.0), (80, 0.8), (90, 0.3)).
We will also refer to Zadeh's following basic
concepts:
Support: The support of a fuzzy set A is a set
S(A) such that
x > 0.
Normality: It has already been mentioned that
#(-) is not limited to values between 0 and 1. If
Supx#A(X ) = 1 the fuzzy set A is called normal. A
not empty fuzzy set A can always be normalized
by dividing/~A(X) by Supx/~A(x ).
Equality: Two fuzzy sets A and B are equal iff
~A(x)=/~,(x) ( o r / ~ A = t ~ , ) , x ~ X.
In the following we will for convenience always
write #a for/aA(X ), X ~ X; unless stated otherwise
and we will assume normalized fuzzy sets.
Containment: A is a subset of B iff ~a </.to.
Intersection: The membership function of A A B
/L4ne = min(/~A, ttB),
or using the conjunction symbol A :
Union: The membership function of A U B is
defined as
/~AuB = max(/~A, /~B)
or
].LAUB~'~A V ~B"
Algebraic product: The membership function ~AB
of the algebraic product of two fuzzy sets A and B
is defined as
Algebraic sum: The membership function of the
algebraic sum of A and B is also defined by its
membership function:
/-tA.o = ttA + ~n --/~A/~O •
Relation: A fuzzy relation, R, in the product
space X × Y = ((x, y)), x ~ X, y ~ Y, is a fuzzy set
in X × Y, the membership function #R of which
associates with each ordered pair (x, y ) a grade of
membership i~R(x,y) in R. An n-ary relation in a
product space X = X~× X 2 . - - X" is then char-
acterized by a corresponding n-variate member-
ship function.
In 1965 Zadeh already mentioned that some of
his concepts--in particular the union and the in-
tersection with their interpretations as 'inclusive
 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR 205

or' and 'and' respectively--might have to be de- for breakfast". The possibility distribution /~(x)
fined differently depending on the context of their and the probability distribution p(x) might then
semantic interpretation. In 1978, Zadeh [48] speci- be as shown in Table 1.
fied one possible interpretation of fuzzy sets as Decision models might contain probabilistic as
possibility distributions. Since there is a certain well as possibilistic components. In addition to
resemblance between possibility theory and proba- those they might, however, contain components
bility theory some comments might be useful: and relationships which are vague but neither in
Probabilistic models are models which describe the probabilistic nor in the possibilistic sense. By a
situations in probabilistic terms, i.e. probabilities, 'decision model', as considered here, we mean a
distribution function etc., and which for their model which can be descriptive or prescriptive and
transformations and relations use the axiomatic which shall be factual in the sense that human
system of probability theory. Hamacher [17] fol- beings can behave as required by the model
lowed Carnap and Stegmi~ller [11] when he dis- (prescriptive case) or do behave as asserted by the
tinguished 12 different kinds of probabilities. They model (descriptive case). I.e. those models have to
differ from each other with respect to their be formulated in a way that they can be tested
semantic interpreation (for instance Kolmogoroff- empirically. This holds for the modelling of vaguely
type probabilities vs Koopman-type probabilities), described entities (corresponding to probability or
with respect to their mathematical properties (the possibility functions) as well as for the computa-
former is a Boolean ring, satisfying the 8 Koop- tional or aggregation rules.
man's axioms, the latter is a o-algebra with specific Suggestions for axiomatic and empirical justifi-
properties) and with respect to their linguistic form cations of concepts for 'and' and 'or' will be
(explicite vs implicite probabilities). Probability presented in Section 4 of this paper.
theory of whichever kind normally assumes that
the 'events' are well defined (crisp). Concerning 1.2. Semantic interpretations of fuzzy sets
the aggregation of probabilities (random numbers
or truth sets) in the sense of 'and', 'or', 'not', the Even though many different kinds of probabili-
operations used (addition, multiplication, sub- ties exist, only two basic interpretations can be
straction from 1) are uniquely defined. Even found: degrees of belief or truth on one side and
though the systems are generally formal and not the frequentistic interpretation on the other side.
factual theories, their empirical validity with re- For fuzzy sets few semantic interpretations have
spect to 'stochastic' situations can be considered so far been put forward:
as satisfactorily established. The above mentioned notion of a possibility
Possibility theory [48] is essentially also a for- distribution can be considered as one interpreta-
mal theory which was developed in the framework tion. The concept of a subjective category as men-
of the theory of fuzzy sets. The semantic interpre- tioned in Section 1.2 is another. Rather similar is
tation of 'possibility' differs, however, from that the concept of a 'linguistic variable'. In fuzzy
of 'probability' and so do the underlying axioms clustering notions of similarity are represented by
and aggregation rules. Possibility theory corre- fuzzy sets. In reliability theory, the term 'safety' or
sponds formally to the min-max version of fuzzy 'reliability' is sometimes considered to be repre-
set theory. The different meanings of a probability sentable by a fuzzy set and in project management
distribution and a possibility distribution might the project time. It can be expected that many
become apparent in the following example: more context-dependent interpretations will be
Let us consider the statement "Paul eats x eggs suggested and used. In all these cases the question

Table 1
Possibility d i s t r i b u t i o n vs. p r o b a b i l i t y d i s t r i b u t i o n

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
~(x) 1 1 1 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0
p(x) 0.1 0.8 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
206 1-1.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
of interpretation can be reduced to a measurement
problem: How is 'Fuzziness' or the 'degree of
membership' measured, on which scale level is the
information available and which operators are ap-
propriate to model the situation or problem under
consideration appropriately. The flexibility of fuzzy
set theory is one of its strengths and weaknesses at
the same time.
Two essential features of the theory of fuzzy
sets should have become obvious by now:
(1) Membership functions of fuzzy sets and opera-
tions with and on them play a crucial role in fuzzy
set theory and both have been of concern to many
scientists in the meantime.
(2) Fuzzy set theory is essentially a very general,
flexible, formal theory. If it is to be applied to real
problems it can and has to be adapted carefully.
Neither the concept of membership nor the 'opera-
tors' have a unique sematic interpretation. The
context-dependent semantic interpretations will
lead to different mathematical definitions of mem-
bership functions and appropriate operators.
In the following we will focus our attention on
contributions of fuzzy set theory to Operations
Research. We will, therefore, exclude some fea-
tures and parts of this theory, in particular the
extensive mathematical development during the
recent past, from our considerations.
3. Where can they be used?
Fuzzy set theory can primarily be used in OR in
three different ways:
(a) As a language to model appropriately prob-
lems and situations which contain fuzzy phenom-
ena or relationships;
(b) As a tool to analyze such models in order to
get a better insight into structures of problems and
models;
(c) As an algorithmic tool to make solution
procedures more stable or faster.
In the following three subsections we shall pre-
sent some examples for each of these potential
application areas.
3.1. Fuzzy sets for modelling
One of the areas of OR to which fuzzy set
theory has been applied most is that of decision
modelling.
In conventional nonfuzzy decision making un-
der certainty we are used to thinking of a decision
as consisting of
(a) a set of possible activities (decision varia-
bles),
(b) a set of constraints limiting the choice be-
tween the alternatives (solution space), and
(c) the objective functions which assigns a
'value' to each result due to a certain choice of
activities according to their 'desirability'.
The optimal decision is then the selection of the
activity with the highest 'desirability' (for instance,
the alternative which results in minimum cost,
maximum profit etc.).
In a fuzzy environment this picture of a deci-
sion has to be revised: The fuzzy objective func-
tion is characterized by its membership function
and so are the constraints. Since we want to satisfy
(optimize) the objective function as well as the
constraints, a decision in a fuzzy environment is
defined by analogy to nonfuzzy environments as
the selection of activities which simultaneously
satisfy objective function(s) and constraints.
If one accepts Bellman and Zadeh's [7] defini-
tion of a decision as the intersection of all fuzzy
sets involved, i.e. the congruence of 'and' and
'intersection', and if one also accepts the mathe-
matical model of the minimum operator for the
intersection of fuzzy sets, then the 'decision' in a
fuzzy environment can be viewed as the intersec-
tion of fuzzy constraints and fuzzy objective func-
tion(s). The relationship between constraints and
objective functions in a fuzzy environment is,
therefore, fully symmetric, i.e. there is no longer a
difference between the former and the latter.
For illustration the following example:
The board of directors has to decide on the
dividend which should be offered to the share-
holders at the next meeting. Some members of the
board argue that " T h e divident should be substan-
tially larger than 10% in order to make our shares
attractive".
Let us call this demand the 'objective'. The
membership function of the fuzzy set "Dividends
substantially larger than 10%" might look like Fig.
2.
Other members of the board argue that for
reasons of stability " T h e dividend should be in the
vincinity of 11%" (This would be the 'constraint').
The membership function of this fuzzy set is shown
in Fig. 3.
 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR 207

u(x) x ~(×)'
I-

0
10 15 x[%]
o 4. ~ _ 10 11 11,75 x[%]
)
Fig. 2. "Dividens substantially larger than 10%". Fig. 4. A fuzzy decision.

The decision, i.e. the fuzzy set including the The concept of a decision in a fuzzy environ-
dividens in the vincinity of 11% and substantially ment has been applied to special types of decisions
larger than 10%, is indicated in Fig. 4. such as linear programming.
Algebraically the membership function of the We shall consider the problem
objective could be
minimize Z = cx,
0 for x < 10% subject to A x <~b, (1)
#°(x)= (l + (x - 1 0 ) - 2 ) -I forx>~ 10%. x>~0
in which the objective function as well as the
That of the constraint could be
constraints are fuzzy sets. We can then write the
,c(x)=((l+(x_ll) 4) ' problem as

Find x such that

The membership function of the decision is then
~D(X) = min{~t0(x), /~c(x)}.
Generally a crisp decision is desired rather than
a fuzzy one. It seems appropriate to consider as a
(crisp) 'optimal decision' the solution with the
highest degree of membership in the fuzzy set
decision.
Thus for an optimal decision
~ ( X * ) = max min{/lc(X ),/~0(x)}.
In the above example
X*=11.755 and ~(X*)=0.755.
11
cx<Z,
Ax z b, (2)
x>~O.
Here c is the vector of the coefficients of the
objective function, b is the vector of the constants
of the constraints, A is the usual coefficient matrix
and Z is an aspiration level which calibrates the
fuzzy set 'objective funtion'. The symbol < de-
notes the fuzzified version of '~< ' and reads for
instance "essentially smaller than or equal to".
We now define a function f : R " + 1 ~ [0, 1] such
that
0 if A x <~b and cx <~Z is strongly
F(Ax) =
violated,
1 if A x <~b and cx <~Z is satisfied.
(3)
Using the simplest version of the functionf(ax, cx)
we assume it to be linear and the intersection of
the (fuzzy) constraints ~tnd the (fuzzy) objective
function.
x[%]
Thus

Fig. 3. "Dividens in the vincinity of 11%". f ( A x , cx) = f ( B x ) = M i n ~ ( ( B x ) , x> 0

208 H . - J . Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR

with tive functions [48] and which accommodate several

objective functions [51]. Other types of operators
1 for ( Bx ) i <~b i, can also be included in the models. It is more
1 -- ( B x ) i - bi difficult, however, to solve the latter type of model
di for b~ < (Bx)i numerically. This, of course, does not decrease the
/,((ax),) = modelling quality of fuzzy set theory.
<~b i + di,
In other areas of decision theory, such as game
for ( Bx ) i theory, group decision theory [29], multi-criteria
> bi + d i , analysis, fuzzy set theory has been used as a
modelling tool similarly. One of the original
(4) motivations for the development of fuzzy set the-
where d i are subjectively chosen constants of ad- ory was pattern recognition. It is therefore not
missible violations of the constraints, f~(Bx)i is the surprising, that this area has remained a field of
membership function of the i th row of the linear intensive use of fuzzy set theory as modelling tool.
system ( Bxi), Three books on fuzzy clustering are witnesses of
this potential [3,5,21]. Clustering is one of the
Minf,. ( ( B x ) , ) areas in which structures which are hidden behind
masses of data are made visible. Fuzziness can
is the 'fuzzy' decision, and enter in a number of ways: Fuzzy objective func-
Max Minf~ ((Bx) ,) tions can be used rather than crisp ones, the
x>~O i gradual membership of an element to many clus-
the decision with the highest degree of member- ters can be expressed rather than the dichotomous
ship. membership to a single cluster. Algorithms have
Substituting been developed which in certain cases turn out to
be more efficient than classical cluster-algorithms.
b;=z, 8;= If the interested reader does not want to start
right away with a book on fuzzy clustering the two
papers by Bezdek and Harris and by Roubens are
componentwise and simplifying by dropping the
a recommendable introducton [34].
'1' (which does not change the problem!) we arrive
Another good and typical example of fuzzy
at the following problem:
modelling is presented by Prade [31] when he
Max Min (b" - ( Bx);) (5) presents a version of 'fuzzy PERT'. He bases his
x>~0 i approach on possibilistic considerations and char-
or acterises the flow times of activities by fuzzy num-
bers which are defined by socalled L - R member-
MaX#D(X). ship functions. These membership functions are
x>~0
uniquely determined by the three-tuples (m, a,/3)
As is well known, this problem is equivalent to
as follows:
solving the following linear program:
Maximize X, [L[(m- x)a-'] for x ~<m,
subjectto X~bi-(Bx)~, i = 0 , 1 . . . . . m, t~(x)=tR[(x-m)fl-' ] forx>~m,
x ~<0. (6) a >..-0,/3 >f 0 (7)
The optimal solution to (5) is also the optimal where m is the mean value (or characteristic value)
solution to (6). of ~ , a and/3 are the left and right spreads of m,
So far linear membership functions and the and L(0) = R(0) = 1.
appropriativeness of the minimum operator have Basing on Zadeh's extension principle which
been assumed. Models, however, have already been defines the membership function of the sum of
suggested in the literature [25] which consider non- two fuzzy numbers ~ + ff as
linear membership functions, which take into con-
sideration crisp and fuzzy constraints and objec- /l,~_~(z) = sup m i n [ / l , ~ ( x ) , / ~ ( x ) ] ,
Z~X4"y
 H.-J. Zimmerrnann / Fuzzy sets in OR
he develops specific rules for the above mentioned
type of membership functions. He then solves
PERT-type sequencing problems in which the
scheduling is constrained by crisp and by fuzzy
constraints.
By contrast to the fuzzy linear programming
approaches described earlier the solution to the
above scheduling program is not a crisp but a
fuzzy schedule.
3.2. Fuzzy set theory as an analytic tool
Let us use the linear programming as a vehicle
for illustration again:
Sensitivity analysis in linear programming in-
vestigates changes of the optimal value of the
objective function or the optimal solution as a
function of changes of the right-hand side or the
coefficients of the objective function. Since all
coefficients are crisp, only crisp changes can be
considered. This is obviously already additional
structural information about the problem or model
compared to the knowledge of the optimal solu-
tion only. If a problem description is vague, how-
ever, it can be modelled as a fuzzy LP-model.
Then changes of stability as a function of varying
fuzziness are of interest and can be obtained.
What consequences do increased tolerance inter-
vals have? What changes can be expected if the
aspirations and hereby the membership functions
of the constraints or objective functions change?
What effects on the solutions can be expected if
crisp constraints turn into fuzzy constraints? These
are questions asked and answered in sensitivity
analysis of fuzzy linear programs [18]. Similar
holds for duality theory in fuzzy linear program-
ming: Traditional crisp duality theory in linear
programming is uniquely defined and considers
optimal pairs of primal-dual solutions only. In
fuzzy duality theory [33] the pairs of primal-dual
models can be formulated differently. In this re-
spect certain analogies exist between stochastic
linear programming and fuzzy linear program-
ming. Fuzzy duality also does not restrict con-
siderations only to optimal pairs of solutions but
also considers suboptimal solutions (decision be-
haviour), which is probably more realistic than
focussing on optimal behaviour only. Another in-
teresting type of sensitivity analysis via fuzzy sets
is presented by Wang and Togai in a very recent
article [42].
209
3. 3. Fuzzy algorithmic approaches
So far fuzzy sets were used to model a problem
and crisp traditional mathematics was used to
either find solutions to equivalent crisp models or
to investigate their structural sensitivity. Now we
shall consider the algorithmic use of fuzzy set
theory.
Two major positions of departure can be recog-
nized: One is a generalization of two-valued logic,
which leads to 'approximate' or 'fuzzy' reasoning.
The other could probably best be characterized by
the term 'fuzzy controller'. The idea behind this
approach is that human controllers are very often
much more stable and efficient in controlling for
instance semi-automatic production processes than
are mathematically formulated and EDP-sup-
ported control devices. One, therefore, tries to
model human controlling behaviour by fuzzy set
theory and after it has been formalized as a 'fuzzy
control algorithm' substitute it for control systems
which are very often mathematically very sophisti-
cated but tend to overreact and 'explode' unter
certain constellations.
In between these two approaches are others,
such as fuzzy decision tree methods [1], fuzzy
branch and bound methods etc. which, however,
are still at the very beginning of their develop-
ment.
Here we shall elaborate some more about 'fuzzy
reasoning' and ' fuzzy controllers'.
"Informally, by approximate or, equivalently,
fuzzy reasoning we mean the process by which a
possibly imprecise conclusion is deduced from a
collection of inprecise premises. Such reasoning is,
for the most part, qualitative rather than quantita-
tive in nature and almost all of it falls outside of
the domain of applicability of classical logic" [47].
Zadeh's system for fuzzy logic essentially con-
sists of sets of rules which together constitute a
consistent system for approximate reasoning. He
distinguishes: 'Translation Rules', i.e. rules that
yield the translation of a modified composite pro-
position from the translations of its constituents.
The translation of a proposition must be under-
stood as its associated possibility distributions.
There are rules pertaining to modification (x is
very small. Therese is highly intelligent.), rules
pertaining to composition (X is small and Y is
large. If X is small then Y is large.), rules pertain-
ing to quantification (Most Swedes are tall. Many
210 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
men are taller than most men) and rules pertaining
to qualification (John is tall is very true. John is
tall is quite possible).
A typical elementary example of the composi-
tional translation rules is for example [47]: X and
Y are variables taking values in U and IS, respec-
tively. F and G are fuzzy subsets of U and V
(possibility distributions/~y and H x).
If
XisF ~ Hx=F,
YisG ~ Hy=G, (8)
then
X i s F a n d Y i s G --, H<x.y)=F(qG
=F×G,
X is F or Y is G ~ H(x.y) = F + G. (9)
Here H(x,y ) is the possibility distribution of the
binary variable (x, y), ff and G are the cylindrical
extensions of F and G, F × G is the cartesian
product of F and G.
If, for instance, U = V = (1, 2, 3) and
Fi small =a ((1, 1), (2, 0.6), (3, 0.1)),
G i large ~ ((1, 0.1), (2, 0.6), (3, 1)),
then (8) and (9) yield
x is small and Y is large ~ 1-l<x.y)
H<x,y )= ([(1, 1), 0.1], [(1, 2), 0.6], [(1, 3), 0.1],
X [(2, 1), 0.1], [(2, 2), 0.6], [(2, 3), 0.61,
× [(3, 1), 0.1], [(3, 2), 0.1], [(3, 3), 0.1]),
x is small or Y is large
II<x.y )= ([(1, 1), 1], [(1, 2), 1], [(1, 3), 1],
X [(2, 1), 0.6], [(2, 2), 0.6],[(2, 3), 1],
× [(3, 1), 1], [(3, 2), 0.6], [(3, 3), 1]).
In addition to the 'Translation Rules' there are
'Modifier Rules', and 'Rules of Inference' which
shall not be discussed here. The major use of all
these rules seems to be the analysis of complex
systems of statements, their transformation into
either simple but equivalent or less redundant
systems or the derivation of conclusions from im-
precise premises. This might sometimes amount to
the 'more precise definition' of vague terms or
relations by means of their membership functions
which otherwise could not be defined satisfactorily
at all.
One application of fuzzy logic is fuzzy control.
For the purpose of illustration let us regard one of
the first experiments in this direction [26]:
The 'plant' to be controlled was a steam engine
and boiler combination. Two inputs were consid-
ered: heat input to the boiler and throttle opening
at the input of the engine cylinder. The outputs are
the steam pressure in the boiler and the speed of
the engine. Tests showed, that the relationships
were highly nonlinear with both magnitude and
polarity of the input variables. Thus an installed
digital controller had to be retuned each time the
operating point was altered. Six variables were
defined: PE (Pressure Error), SE (Speed Error),
CPE (Change in Pressure Error), CSE (Change in
Speed Error), HC (Heat Change) and TC (Throttle
Change), the last two of which are the action
variables. Between 5 and 8 fuzzy sets were defined
for each of these variables: PB (Positive Big), PM
(Positive Medium), PS (Positive Small), NO (Nil).
PO (Just above zero), NS (Negative Small), N M
(Negative Medium) and NB (Negative Big). For
the variable TC (Throttle Change) five of these
fuzzy sets (i.e. their membership functions) are
shown in Table 2.
In addition to the rules for the union and
intersection of fuzzy sets mentioned earlier the
complement rA of a fuzzy set A was defined by
/lrA(x ) = 1 -/~A(x). This corresponded to the ne-
gation of the statement behind fuzzy set A. A
heater control algorithm and a throttle control
algorithm was designed and implemented. For
illustration we show a part of the heater algorithm:
If PE = NB
and CPE = not (NB or NM)
and SE = ANY
Table 2
Fuzzy set Setting
-2 -1 0 +1 +2
PB 0 0 0 0.5 1
PS 0 0 15 1 0.5
NO 0 0.5 1 0.5 0
NS 0.5 1 0.5 0 0
NB 1 0.5 0 0 0
 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR 211

Set-point his problem• Also many authors base their models

on the min- and max- operators as they are being
used in possibility theory without any proof why
p/ d'
xc there are adequate in a specific situation•
There are two ways to justify the use of particu-
lar membership functions or operators: Axiomatic
justification, similar to the approaches used in
utility theory and empirical proofs. We shall com-
ment on these two approaches in the next para-
I I I I I I I I I I I graphs.
IT 2T 3T 4T ..... T 80see
Time 4.1. Axiomatic systems
Fig. 5. Fixed controller (DDC-algorithm) ( × , D) vs. Fuzzy
controller (O). The first axiomatic justification for the min-op-
erator to be a model for the intersection of fuzzy
sets and therefore a model for the (logical) 'and'
and CSE = A N Y was given by Bellman and Giertz [6].
then HC = PB Starting from ten plausible axioms Hamacher
Else [17] derived four basic nonredundant axioms for
the connective 'and' (conjunction) interpreted as
If PE = N B o r N M the intersection operator, which also seemed to be
and CPE = NS
sensible from the point of view of rational decision
and SE = ANY
making:
and SCE = A N Y
then HC = PM
Axiom 1. The connective C (conjunction) is as-
The performance of the fuzzy controller compared sociative, i.e. A A (B A C) = (A A B) A C (neces-
to other automatic controllers turned out to be sary to extend C from 2 to n statements)•
quite good as can be seen from Fig. 5.
Axiom 2. C is continuous (secures stability of C
for small changes of/~A and/ta).
4. How are they being used?
Axiom 3. C is injective in each argument, i.e.
By 'how' we mean: are fuzzy sets used as a (A A B)~:(A A C) i f B : ~ C.
purely formal tool or language or do they assert to
factually model problems, situations or be- Axiom 4. / ~ x~<o.ll" C ( x , x ) = x ,~ x = l .
haviours?
Fuzzy set theory is obviously a formal tool A, B and C denote fuzzy sets and x is the
when used algorithmicly or as a language for for- degree of membership of an element with respect
mal models• to the appropriate fuzzy set.
If, however, fuzzy set models claim to factually Hamacher proved that if C is an algebraic
describe in subjective categories, decision making function, a rational function, and a polynom in x
behaviour of human beings or the aggregation and y then only the following mathematical de-
process in decision making then some more proof scription of the operator is possible:
and justification is needed• In fuzzy set theory
C(x,y) = x .y
there are primarily two areas in which such justifi- v+ ( 1 - v ) ( x + y - x y ) '
cations are desirable: membership functions and
operators. Most publications still proceed by "as- 7 is an arbitrary constant• For Y = 1 the above
suming a membership function of that and that formula reduces to
type". They certaintly are suggesting formal mod- C(x,y)=x.y,
els, and the reader is left with the problem of
determining appropriate membership functions for which obviously contradicts the assertion that the
212 H . - J. Zirnmerrnann / F u z z y sets in O R
minimum operator is used to model the 'and'.
It should be stressed that Hamacher's justifica-
tion was primarily aiming at the use of 'and' in
decision problems! It does not seem possible to
justify any model for the 'and' contextfree, i.e.
valid for all possible problem areas. Dombi [13]
pointed to the fact that it might even be difficult
to derive and justify models for connectives without
taking into consideration the models used for
membership functions and weighting of fuzzy sets.
For shapes of membership functions hardly any
axiomatic justifications have become known so far.
Schwab [35], again for fuzzy sets representing fuzzy
criteria in decision models, justified spline func-
tions as proper membership functions. He bases
his proof on 10 'rationality axioms' and derives a
type of function which is unique and which can be
calibrated by the decision maker by setting three
interpretable parameters. An empirical validation
of his axioms is, however, not yet available and
might be difficult to obtain.
4. 2. Empirical approaches
When testing empirically the product operator
and the minimum operator whether they really
modelled the 'and' used in human decisions it was
found in the second half of the seventies that both
operators had to be rejected as adequate models
[40].
There appeared even doubts on whether
managerial decisions could be looked at as 'inter-
sections' of goals and constraints: Intersection in
the classical sense means that there is no com-
pensation between the membership to different
sets: If somebody is looking for a black-and-red
skirt, then a green (not black)-and-red skirt will
not be acceptable, even though it might be " v e r y
red". (In two characteristic functions a zero of one
can never be compensated by a one in the ap-
propriate position of another characteristic func-
tion when intersecting them.)
In managerial decisions, however, in most cases
compensatory effects between objectives are pre-
sent. Two portfolios might, for instance, be of
equal worth even though one has a slightly higher
expected return and the other a lower risk in-
volved! If full compensation was present, the un-
ion, modelled by the max-operator might be an
acceptable model for aggregation. This, however,
seems unlikely in the light of the large variety of
types of managerial decisions. Therefore, first of
all a new 'and' had to be introduced; we called it
the 'compensatory and' in contrast to the 'logical
and'. As mathematical models for this 'compensa-
tory and' a number of possible operators were
tested: Max, Min, arithmetic mean, geometric
mean and a special 'y-operator'. Detailed descrip-
tions of the tests and the results can be found in
[40]. It turned out, that the operator which by far
performed best was the 3,-operator, which incorpo-
rated the following idea:
When people aggregate subjective categories in
their minds in order to evaluate or decide they use
a great variety of operators. These operators vary
with respect to the degree of compensation and
with respect to the importance attached to the
criteria expressed in the subjective categories. Then
expressing their thoughts verbally they are forced
to choose one of the only two words available to
them: 'and' or 'or'. These words have been seman-
tically defined, 'and' as the 'logical and' without
any compensation and 'or' as the 'inclusive or'
with full compensation. Thus already by ex-
pressing their thoughts due to the 'poorness' of
our language people have to approximate their real
problems or thought processes more or less well by
selecting the verbal connective which is closest to
their real connnective.
Thus the real approximation takes place already
when verbally expressing evaluation models and
not so much when turning this description into a
mathematical model.
Since the real connective with respect to com-
pensation has to be between the 'logical and' and
the 'inclusive or' we defined the 'compensatory
and' as a combination of the intersection and the
union of fuzzy sets:
]XASB ~ ~ A ~ B t ' A U B" (lO)
If the intersection and the union are algebraically
represented by the product and the algebraic sum,
respectively, then (10) becomes
/to= /x 1- (1-/1,) , (11)
i=1 i=1
0</~<l,0<y< 1,
i = 1, 2 , . . . , m, m = number of sets to be connected.
If it is desired to introduce different weights for
the sets in question. /~ and 1 - / ~ , could for in-
 Credit-
II worthiness
Weight

f
i
I
y _ 0.59

Financial
Personality
basis
8 = 0.95
N

I e~
II
y = 0.62 7 = 0.60
II
/
3' - ' 0.78

Liquidity Business I
Potential
I behavior [

1
7 = 0.98 ]( y = 0.84 3' = 0.57 J V = 0.90 7 = 0.55 "r = 0.77 "y = 0.55

Property minus
I
Conformation with
Other net Income minus Continuity Ph) ical Economic" }
long-term property expenses ,ntal Motivation thinking social & economic
of margin & ~
pott
debts ztial 8 = 0.80 standards
3 = 2.03 8 = 1.01
8 = 0.23 8 = 0.92

Fig. 6. Concept hierarcy of creditworthiness together with individual weights and y-alues for each level of aggregation.

i'O
t~
 214 H. -.I. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR

stance be replaced by Some of those real applications have not been

published. One of the reasons for the relatively
/.l, = $1, 1 -p,=(l -v,p (12) small number of real applications is probably that
a new theory or tool has to be widely accepted by
where V, are the (raw)membership values and S,
practitioners before it is applied to real problems.
their corresponding weights. In order to preserve
Thus most ‘applications’ so far are applications to
the structure of our model, the sum of weights S,
‘model problems’. We shall cite some of them:
should be equal to the number of sets connected.
Control of processes has been a widespread
In the laboratory type tests this connective per-
concern of people working in fuzzy set theory. The
formed very well. Formally it also has the ad-
most information about applications of fuzzy set
vantages that it is
theory to control problems can be found in Gupta,
- pointwise injective,
- continuous, Saridis and Gaines [15]. Here one finds several
monotonic and commutative,
_ in accordance with truth tables of dual logic. descriptions of applications to warm water plants,
to a sinter making plant in which the standard
It is also ‘context adaptable’ by its two parame-
deviations was reduced by 40% compared to nor-
ters which can be easily determined empirically
mal control, to a basic oxygen steel making pro-
whenever desired.
cess and to cement Kiln control.
This connective was then tested in a field study
Applications to inventory problems are de-
type experiment:
scribed by Sommer [37] and by Kacprzyk and
45 credit clarks of 5 different banks were asked
Staniewsky [20], very interesting discussions of
to rate 50 fictious credit applications as to their
applications of fuzzy set theory to problems of
credit worthiness. A detailed description of experi-
civil engineering are presented by Blockley [8], to
mental procedures, results and data can be found
queuing models by Dubois and Prade [ 141, and to
in [53] and [54].
project management by Chanas and Kamburow-
Fig. 6 shows the values of y and 6 which were
sky [ 121 and by Dubois and Prade [ 141.
determined for the creditworthiness hierarchy of
A book recently edited by Yager [45] also in-
Fig. 1.
cludes descriptions of the interesting application
In order to test the above mentioned models for
of fuzzy set theory to data display problems, to
operators empirical membership functions had to
water resource planing and earth quake engineer-
be determined empirically before.
ing, to regional development and to aggregate
Computer programs were developed which de-
production scheduling and to a number of medical
rived from observations informations on a scale
problems.
level appropriate for degrees of membership. These
Of course, fuzzy linear programming has been
referred to fuzzy sets only which consisted of a
applied to real problems in logistics (truck fleet
finite number of elements. Later models were de-
scheduling, container scheduling), and to blending
veloped and tested [40] which were suited to de-
problems and to model problems of multi criteria
scribe membership functions for continuous fuzzy
analysis [51], media selection [43], etc.. At present
sets such as “tall men”, “large profits”, etc. These
membership functions can also be calibrated con- an interactive decision support system on the basis
of fuzzy linear programming with several objective
text dependently by setting certain parameters.
Focus was again the modelling of subjective cate- functions and crisp and fuzzy constraints is being
gories by fuzzy sets. Other types of membership developed. Publications in this direction can be
functions might have to be developed for other expected in 1983/84.
application areas.

5. Conclusions
4.3. Applications
Fuzzy set theory-even though still young-has
The theory of fuzzy sets is still quite young. Its already proved to be a very useful modelling and
fast growth really started in the second half of the algorithmic tool in Operational Research. The the-
seventies. It is therefore not surprising that the oretical mathematical development is quite ad-
number of ‘real’ applications is still not very high. vanced but not yet finished by far. Kandel lists in
 H.-J. Zimmermann / Fuzzy sets in OR
his recent book [21] 3064 references which is cer-
tainly a considerable number of publications. In
particular, if most of them have appeared within
the last ten years. Two Journals are published in
this area and looking at the contribution in these
journals one gets the impression t h a t - - t o an in-
creasing degree--the theoretical papers outnum-
ber the applied papers. This is certainly regretta-
ble, but it is a tendency which can also be recog-
nized in other areas, for instance, Operational
Research!
Fuzzy Sets are so far primarily used in Opera-
tional Research
- as a modelling language.
All cases in which fuzzy set theory is properly
used as a modelling tool are characterized by
three features:
(a) Fuzzy phenomena, relations or evaluations
are modelled by a well defined and founded
theory (there is nothing fuzzy about fuzzy
set theory!);
(b) By doing so a better approximation of real
phenomena by formal models is achieved;
(c) A better modelling of real phenomena nor-
mally requires more and more detailed in-
formation than is needed for rather rough
dichotomous modelling.
- as an algorithmic tool. The main advantages are
that heuristic algorithms can often be made
more efficient by use of fuzzy sets and that
human controlling or problem solving be-
haviour can often be modelled better by fuzzy
set theory than by traditional mathematics.
There exists a strong need for more empirical
research, in particular on membership functions.
This is probably one reason for the lack of more
real applications and their publication. Some pro-
gress in this direction will hopefully be made in
the near future. This would certainly make fuzzy
set theory even more useful for Operational Re-
search.
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