EXPERT SYSTEMS IN MANUFACTURING - PROMISES AND PERILS

Expert systems play a key role as a tool to enhance productivity, improve quality, increase profits and capture expertise in many business and industrial environments. Although the potential of expert systems is well-understood, it has been a challenging, and often elusive, task to make an expert system operational in the "real-world" environment. One of the major reasons why many expert systems fail to be integrated into the operational environment is a lack of knowledge and techniques on how to test an expert system. The implications of an inadequately-tested expert system in a manufacturing environment are serious. In this paper, we take a look at the many applications of expert systems in manufacturing and utilize a three-pronged approach to develop robust and reliable expert systems.