Issues in expert system development

The explicit representation of domain knowledge and its separation from the processes which manipulate it and the representation formalism particular to artificial intelligence allow expert systems to solve problems which are characterized by a high combinatoric complexity or which are sufficiently ill defined as to not have reasonable software engineering solutions. The expert system approach to problem-solving differs radically from its conventional system development counterpart. This paper defines the expert system and introduces the production system architecture. The relative strengths and weakenesses of expert system and software engineering approaches to problem solving are discussed. Also addressed are criteria for identifying problems amenable to expert system solution and some justifications for system development.Paper presented at the Ninth International Thermal Expansion Symposium, December 8–10, 1986, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.