The application of expert systems to the management of technology

Technology management must be improved if the US is to cope in an aggressively competitive international marketplace. It is becoming increasingly clear that investing in technologically advanced plant and equipment alone is not enough to compete successfully. To raise levels of efficiency and effectiveness in technology management, firms must develop a multi-dimensional approach to solving problems associated with manufacturing process. A way to capture scenarios for decision-making is through expert systems—programs that have wide bases of knowledge in restricted domains and utilize complex inferential reasoning to perform tasks that human beings could accomplish, but less efficiently. These systems contain a great deal of knowledge about a specific problem areas and disciplines. They also allow expertise to be distributed throughout the firms, raising competence levels and the productivity of non-experts.