An approach to knowledge elicitation of manufacturing skills and production behaviour in an industrial environment

The application of expert systems (ES) in industry is an area in which achievements have not lived up to initial expectations. The authors´ research at Sunderland Polytechnic is to address this situation and evaluate the relevance of recent ES developments and their approaches to an industrial domain. To this end they carried out the stages of building an expert system in a manufacturing domain. In the process of building an ES, knowledge had to be acquired from the source of knowledge. This is not an easy task. This process is complex because it entails defining, conceptually structuring and refining the context of a knowledge base. The process operators at Fasson Cramlington Ltd were the sources of knowledge and manufacturing skills were the type of knowledge that had to be acquired