Expert systems in production and operations management: Results of a survey

A survey of 74 knowledge engineers from private organizations was conducted to examine empirically the state of expert systems in these organizations. The knowledge engineers were asked to rate issues related to successful implementation, the extent of use in several areas, the original motivations for implementation, the perceived and quantified benefits of implementation, the interactions with end users, and the knowledge acquisition techniques they used to aid development. The paper reports the results and describes some specific expert systems that the respondents organizations have developed and are currently using.