Main Areas of Expert Systems

Expert System is always developed for a particular domain or area. Main areas of Expert System are as follows (Haag, Cummings, Dawkins 1998):

• Accounting systems are used for auditing, taxation, training and consultancy for management.

• Medicine systems are used for disease diagnostic and treatments, such as Eye Care Expert System and MYCIN. Eye Care Expert System is used in Egypt and Algeria where Eye specialist doctors do not prefer to appoint. MYCIN was developed to detect the bacterial infection in the blood.

• Production systems are used to schedule the production, such as General Motor are using an Expert System (ES) to schedule their production.

• Maintain and Service systems, such as DELTA. General Electric developed an ES to provide service at service stations to repair engines. General Electric practiced a strategy over the years to attach young engineers with senior engineers when they are going to retire. Young Engineers get enough knowledge and expertise by the time senior engineers retired. General Electric thought to develop an ES in 1980 to preserve the knowledge and experience of a senior engineer David I. Smith at the time of his retirement after 40 years of service. DELTA was developed after the effort of three years. Main Features of DELTA are as follows:

1. Reasons exactly like a senior engineer.
2. Helps the young engineers to detect fault after few minutes of interaction.
3. Explains the logic of its solution.
4. Provides instructions to repair securely
5. Provides drawings of all engine parts.

• Finance Management systems.
• Forest Management systems.
• Process Control systems, such as Flight Control, Nuclear Reactors Control and Missile Control.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Expert Systems

Advantages

Increase productivity.

• Increase quality
• Increase reliability.
• Increase flexibility.
• Saves time and cost.
• Operate in hazard and remote environments.
• Remove the need to purchase expensive equipments.
• Operate complex equipments and no need to train the workers again and again.
• Can solve problems quickly and efficiently.

Disadvantages

• Knowledge is hard to acquire that is needed to develop an expert system.

• Experts are reluctant to transfer their knowledge and expertise.

• Expert Systems are always developed for a specific domain where as human expert can be specialize of more than one domain.

• Vocabulary stored in the knowledgebase of an ES, in terms of terminologies, can only understand by experienced persons.

• Knowledge Engineers are in small quantity in the industry and very expensive.

Comparison of Conventional vs. Expert System

A comparison of conventional vs. Expert Systems is as follows:

• A conventional system cannot make mistakes but Expert System (ES) can make.

• A conventional system operates only when it is complete where as ES can operate even if few rules are written.

• Maintenance of conventional system is very difficult where as it is very easy for an ES.

• Conventional systems have no function to explain the logic of its solution where as it is part of an ES.

• Conventional systems are used to process and display data from the databases where as Expert Systems process and display knowledge from the knowledgebase.

• Conventional systems are used to handle quantitative data where as Expert Systems handle qualitative data.

• Execution of conventional system follows structured approach where as execution of an ES follows logic to reach a conclusion or solution.

• Conventional systems are evaluated on the base of efficiency where as Expert Systems are evaluated on base of effectiveness.

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