DDES: Dyeing Diagnostic Expert System for the Textile Coloration

Textile dyeing is a complicated process, so that quality of its final product is affected by the seemingly countless variables. As a consequence, diagnosing problems in this process is a very complex task. Troubleshooting process has been conventionally performed by human experts and the use of intelligence systems has been identified as a novel potential technology. Expert systems are computer systems that emulate and duplicate the behavior of experts for solving problems within a specific domain. Similar to a human expert, they can reason logically, make decisions and explain their conclusions. This paper reports on the development and evaluation of a dyeing diagnostic expert system (DDES) in the areas of cotton and polyester/cotton textiles and also compares construction methodologies of this system with the recently developed diagnostic expert systems in the field of textile coloration. The results reveal that the developed system can assist dyeing diagnosticians and other users by following an intelligent diagnostic method. It finds an optimal choice for handling human experts. Besides, it proposes an effective approach for integrating multiple experts’ opinions or sorting experts’ responses.