Fuzzy Expert System for the Competitiveness Evaluation of Shipbuilding Companies

The world's shipbuilding industry as well as shipping industry is going through some unprecedented recession period in recent years. Shipbuilding companies in China have suffered a lot and many are now focusing on improving their competitiveness to survive the recession. The evaluation of a company’s competitiveness is difficult considering the high level of uncertainty involved. This paper is a preliminary attempt to evaluate the competitiveness of Chinese shipbuilding companies using Fuzzy Expert System. An example system is presented in this paper which has shown its adoptability. With a larger and better intelligent database system established in the future, more accurate and reliable results can be achieved, which could help the practitioners in the shipbuilding industry to better understand and predict their companies’ competitiveness.