MOBY: a semi-custom make or buy decision advisor

The authors discuss elements of the make-or-buy decision process and present a description of an expert system called MOBY which is a generic customizable make-or-buy decision advisor. MOBY was developed using the expert system environment/VM shell. The purpose of MOBY is to provide a framework for the make-or-buy decision and to allow a site developer to customize MOBY´s generic knowledge base for a given location. This customizing is necessary because each make or buy decision is site- and product-specific. The customization is done by the addition and/or modification of focus control blocks, rules, and site-specific database.<>