Managing demand uncertainty through fuzzy inference in supply chain planning

In this paper, we investigate methods for managing the irregular and uncertain demands involved in supply chain planning. We first build a supply chain planning model based on fuzzy linear programming, which defines demand as a fuzzy parameter. Next, we propose a fuzzy inference approach for converting fuzzy demand into crisp demand. In the proposed fuzzy inference-based approach, judgments of upcoming demand from both internal and external experts are used as input variables to reflect the expected demand irregularity. By adopting fuzzy inference, we can compensate for the limitations of the existing demand treatment approaches, which usually demonstrate poor forecasting performance in cases of irregular demand and thus reduce the accuracy of supply chain planning. To verify the feasibility of the proposed approach, we present an illustrative example of a Korean electronics company.