On-line decision support fuzzy systems: an application to product pricing

The extremely fast development of software tools in the last few years has open a completely new perspective for computing systems. The emergence of commuting languages such as Perl and Java has made possible the development of on-line systems running as cross-platform programs. In this article we present an example of such systems: a commuting system for cost analysis. The system provides an analysis of the cost structure of a firm and can be accessed through the Internet as an on-line application. The aim of the application presented in this paper is to perform product pricing evaluation. The fuzzy system evaluates an initial product pricing which is the result of a contribution margin entered by the user. After iterative cycles, the system reaches a pricing decision; the latest decision is such that a contribution margin correction is no longer necessary. At this point, the fuzzy system returns a pricing suggestion to the user. This answer is associated with a contribution margin value and with a rate of return forecast