Expert System Application

What are Expert Systems?

• ESs are one of the most commercially successful branches of artificial
intelligence (AI).

• An expert system contains a knowledge base, a dialog structure and an inference

engine, which consists of an interpreter and a scheduler.

• The knowledge base is the collection of the domain knowledge.

• The dialog structure provides communications and interaction with the user
during the operation and processing of the expert system. The inference engine
contains the general problem solving knowledge.

• The interpreter makes decisions on how to apply the rules for inferring new
knowledge and the scheduler prioritizes the rules in the appropriate order.
 Applications in ES in Operations
• The applications range from the operational to the strategic level. Most of
the applications occur in highly structured to semi-structured conditions.
• Capacity Planning
– decision area central to the long-term growth of an organization with both strategic
and operational implications. Poor capacity planning can prove very costly.

– Capacity planning requires an indication of current capacity and its utilization, so

that future additions can be scheduled properly.

– Presently an capacity planning ES is used for the IBM system called a performance
expert prototype (PEP), which uses a blackboard as a means of communication
between modules, each of which is a specialist in some sub-task.

– The user module is written in PASCAL, a control module in REXX, a command

language, and the evaluation module in LISP and OPS5. PEP has been implemented
on the VM under the CMS operating system.
 Contd…
• Facility location and design
– Location decisions have strategic implications because they can assist in
achieving company goals. Facility location deals with determining the
geographic site at which a productive facility is situated and the size of the
new facility.

– The problem gets cumbersome because it involves both quantitative

factors (eg. labour costs, transportation costs) and qualitative factors
(community attitudes, legal problems).

– The facilities design expert system (FADES) uses a knowledge-based or

expert computer system to combine judgemental rules of human experts
with quantitative tools.

– It developed good facility designs for a variety of unstructured design

situations by using principles of multi-attribute decision theory to help the
decision maker eliminate one or more alternatives from consideration.
• Facility layout
– Layout choices are critical decisions and must be tied closely to higher
level decisions made by the management.
– Computerized relationship layout planning (CORELAP) and automated
layout design program (ALDEP) are some examples of systems which
have been developed to aid in the layout of facilities.
– Unfortunately, most of these systems fail to have any procedural rules
which take into consideration the creative aspects of a human design
expert.
– WORKPLACE DESIGNER, another ES evaluates layouts and recommends
design changes to improve labour productivity which used a group
technology-based approach for finding the initial part machine
groupings and laying out the machining areas in these groups minimize
material handling costs.
• Project management
– Project management deals with the scheduling and control of large
projects. A project is a set of activities, with a definite starting and
ending point, that results in a unique product or service.

– The only known application of an ES using project management was

developed by Levitt and Kunz who used a prototype which applied AI
techniques to modify activity lists and schedules. The model was
applied to offshore oil platform construction.
• Aggregate planning
– The aggregate planning problem can be stated as follows: given a set
of forecasts, Ft, determine production, inventory and workforce levels.

– PATRIARCH , is an ES which is used in this area. It is a multilevel

planning, scheduling and control system that was developed for
manufacturing.

– It incorporates AI knowledge modeling, multi-level networking and

advanced economic costing to plan on strategic forecasting and
planning, master scheduling and scheduling on real-time control.
 Contd…

• Process design

– Process design is the selection of inputs, operations, work flows and methods
used to produce goods and services. Input selection includes choosing the
preferred mix of human skills, raw materials and equipment consistent with an
organization’s strategy and its ability to obtain these resources.

– The first knowledge-based system to deal with process design was GARI. It
develops plans for machining sequences of mechanical parts and also production
rules as well as rules for process and cut selection.

– Technostructure of machining (TOM) was another system for a machining process

planning system. It used production process plans for machining some
mechanical parts.

– However, these systems focus on choice of equipment in the existing process,

and do not focus on the larger issues of designing the process to aid a firm with
its competitive priorities and strategies.