Quality management systems and expert system approach for designing and implementing a mechanised self‐assessment system

Self‐assessment (SA) process provides the evidence‐based guidelines for organisations to find suitable opportunities for investments and improvement. SA systems are generally required for establishment and maintenance of quality management and assurance systems. Thus, the aim of this paper is to design and implement a mechanised SA system based on fundamental principles and requirements of ISO 9004:2000 and provide a tool for assessment of the organisational maturity and recognising the improvement points. To design this mechanised system, the expert system has been used in providing the assessment and scoring questions the experts' knowledge, chief auditors of quality management system, and this knowledge has been saved in the Microsoft Access software database. Also, Visual Basic software has been applied for creating user interface and deduction. In addition, the steps of development of this system conform to the steps of development of expert systems. Different organisations or users can assess themselves, determine their quality management maturity level and identify their performance improvement points, based on ISO 9004:2000, by connecting to this system.