Purpose-A Multi Expert System is presented that can analyse a design and provide designers with suggestions for improvement and changes to designs at an early stage in order to improve assembly later in the manufacturing process. The Multi Expert System can analyse a design and provide designers with suggestions for improvement and changes to designs at an early stage in order to improve assembly later in the manufacturing process. Design/methodology/approach-The whole system consists of four expert systems: Computer Aided Design (CAD) Expert, Automated Assembly Expert, Manual Assembly Expert and Design Analysis Expert. The Design Analysis Expert includes a subsystem to collate the information from the Assembly Experts and to provide costs and advice Findings-The approach and the systems can reduce manufacturing costs and lead times. Research limitations/implications-A knowledge-based reckoning approach to design-for-assembly automation is used. The approach and systems can reduce manufacturing-costs and lead-times. The system can estimate assembly-time and cost for manual or automatic assembly and select suitable assembly techniques. Practical implications-The system can estimate assembly time and cost for manual or automatic assembly and select a suitable assembly technique. Originality/value-The new system models assembly, product and process design using a natural approach for capturing intelligence. The new approach categorised automated assembly and manual assembly into separate individual experts. Intelligence and knowledge from each was captured and embedded within the individual expert that represented the process. This approach enabled greater flexibility and made the subsystems easier to modify, upgrade, extend and reuse.

Some rule based techniques are presented that can assist powered wheelchair drivers. The expert system decides on the direction and speed of their wheelchair. The system tends to avoid obstacles while having a tendency to turn and head in towards a desired destination. This is achieved by producing a new target angle as an extra input. Other inputs are from sensors and a joystick. Directions are recommended and mixed with user inputs from the joystick representing desired direction and desired speed. The rule-based system decides on an angle to turn the powered wheelchair and suggest it. Inputs from the joystick and sensors are mixed with the suggested angle from the Rule Based Expert System. A modified direction for the wheelchair is produced. The whole system helps disabled wheelchair users to drive their powered wheelchairs.

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In recent years the palm oil has been criticized because of its impacts on the environment and human health. Therefore, this study focused on the investigation of human health and ecosystem quality impacts that arose from the plantation of fresh fruit bunch of palm oil by employing an open-source software, namely OpenLCA version 1.5. The life cycle assessment approach was used for the analysis of the investigated impacts. The effects of land use changes on the human health and ecosystem quality were assessed. By employing ReCiPe Endpoint methodology in life cycle impact assessment phase the total ecosystems impact 0.00017 species per year while total human health damage was 0.00146 DALY The results showed that the land use change has an impact on all the impacts categories except the freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, ozone depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and terrestrial acidification. In addition, the analysis showed that the application of the fertilizers and pesticides were the main contributor in all the impact categories. The results show that transportation is not the major contributor in any one of the impact categories