Physical Science, Measurement and Instrumentation, Management and Education, IEE Proceedings A

The authors present a practical evaluation of a particular type of expert planning system, known as XPERT. This has been designed to support interactive knowledge-based reasoning of expedition strategies that automatically apply preferred levels of investment to restore projects to meet their original (or improved) deadlines. The evaluation was performed in structured fashion by experienced project managers, who used XPERT in parallel with traditional computing methods on a variety of practical projects. Conclusions as to the efficacy of the system and recommendations for the system´s future development are presented. The authors comment on how XPERT might become part of the vanguard for third-generation computer-aided project-management tools.