Experience using S.1: an expert system for newspaper printing press configuration

Abstract

This paper describes some of our experience gathered during the development of an expert system, the press lineup advisor, in which we used the commercially available expert system development tool, S.1.™ Discussion includes: (1) how we used S. l to develop a system which solves a configuration problem; (2) difficulties we encountered when applying S.1 to this specific reasoning problem; (3) limitations of S.1 from both problem-solving and operational points of view and (4) issues remaining to be solved with respect to generalization of the system.

Learning to use the S.1 knowledge engineering tool

“…It is not always easy to decide which approach is most suited to a particular application, but if insufficient care is taken at this stage then it can be difficult to detect later from the operation of the system alone that the rules do not represent the domain knowledge in the intended way. Premises and conclusions can become difficult to understand, and the example rule given by Lan, Panos and Balban, (1988), illustrates the complexity that can be involved: note here the restricted instance variables declared in the "already.existing" and "for.all.existing" expressions. This degree of complexity can lead to possible omissions or duplications of rule-based knowledge.…”

“…The generate and test control structure used by Lan, Panos and Balban (1988), shows a still higher degree of sophistication.…”