1993 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 119-127
Expert systems for planning, design and control are considered useful for their easier handling of heuristic rules. These problems may have several candidates which maximize/minimize its criterion function at almost the same satisfaction. In order to obtain the most suitable one, a quantitative evaluation function is further required for expert systems.
We have been developed an expert system accompanied with a simulator for quantitative evaluation, especially suitable for a material handling problem. In this system, rules select several candidates. Then the simulator evaluates their usefulness and suggests the most appropriate one. This system configuration improves reliability of its solution and helps to add rules easier. From the point of maintainability, in the expert system, there are two knowledge bases according to their abstraction levels. These various methods improve practicability of this system.
As its application, the material handling problem for the billet conditioning line in the steel making process is solved.
