Using an expert system for trouble-shooting

Describes work carried out recently by The Queen´s University of Belfast and DuPont (UK) Limited in collaboration with Rosemont, using an Expert System to aid trouble-shooting the hardware of RMV9000 Distributed Control Systems (DCS). These control systems are very reliable due to modern electronic technology and the use of redundancy. They have reduced maintenance costs from about 7% to about 2% of the total equipment investment relative to previous control systems. Consequently, human experts have found that the need for application of maintenance knowledge has been reduced considerably and it is difficult to acquire and retain this knowledge efficiently. In addition, due to the high capital investment, it is important when faults do occur to diagnose and repair quickly in order to minimize the risk of any plant shut-down. Expert Systems are ideally suited to this situation, they can retain the expertise of the human expert and make it available when required