The evaluation and ranking of Greek wood companies based on actual financial data is a very complicated task and it requires expertise knowledge and skills. On the other hand a computer expert system can perform validation and evaluation in an efficient way and can substitute human experts. An expert system was designed and developed towards this direction. | Yugoslav Journal of Operations Research 13 (2003), Number 2, 187-197 AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR RANKING COMPANIES AND INVESTMENTS: WOOD INDUSTRY CASE* Lazaros HLIADIS+, Theodoros KOUTROUMANIDIS‡, Garyfallos ARABATZIS+, Charalambos ARAPATSAKOS‡ +Department of Forestry and Environmental Management and Natural Resources Democritus University of Thrace omega@, liliadis@ garamp@ ‡ Department of Agricultural Development Democritus University of Thrace xarapat@ Communicated by Byron Papathanassiou Abstract: Wood industry is a very important part of both the Greek Rural and industrial sector. The discovery of the differentiation in the level of growth and in the quality of financial management between the Greek wood companies can provide very important aid in the design of an effective rural development policy. The evaluation and ranking of Greek wood companies based on actual financial data is a very complicated task and it requires expertise knowledge and skills. On the other hand a computer expert system can perform validation and evaluation in an efficient way and can substitute human experts. An expert system was designed and developed towards this direction. It uses multicriteria analysis for each one of the wood companies based on actual financial data and it applies fundamental principles of fuzzy logic in order to calculate the expected intervals of flows for the following years. Keywords: Multicriteria analysis, computer expert systems, wood industries, fuzzy logic. * Presented at 6th Balkan Conference on Operational Research 188 L. Hliadis, T. Koutroumanidis, G. Arabatzis, C. Arapatsakos / An Expert System 1. INTRODUCTION The systematic and organized processing of wood by the utilization of contemporary means and the application of basic technological rules to the production line has a long history in Greece. The two most important time-periods for the development of Greece's wood industry are the periods .
