Expert systems in business: applications and future directions for the operations researcher
| Published date | 01 July 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570310477 |
| Date | 01 July 2003 |
| Pages | 361-368 |
| Author | K. Metaxiotis,John Psarras |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Expert systems in business: applications and future
directions for the operations researcher
K. Metaxiotis
Institute of Communications and Computer Systems, National Technical
University of Athens, Athens, Greece
John Psarras
Institute of Communications and Computer Systems, National Technical
University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Introduction
In the past decade there has been a virtual
explosion of interest in the field known as
expert systems (or, alternatively, as
knowledge-based systems). Appearing from
seemingly out of nowhere, expert systems(es)
have quickly evolved from an academic
notion into a proven and highly marketable
product. ES provide powerful and flexible
means for obtaining solutions to a variety of
problems that often can not be dealt with by
other, more traditional and orthodox
methods. Nowadays their use is being
proliferated to many sectors of our social life,
while their applications are proved to be
critical in the process of decision support and
decision making.
This review bears witness to the
enthusiastic application of expert systems
across a wide range of business-related
problems with varying success. Certainly,
this is not the first paper to review expert
systems. The developments in the field of ES
have been reviewed by several authors from
various points of view. Wright and Rowe
(1992) reviewed the applications of ES in
marketing, while Wong et al. (1994)
discussed the utilization and benefits of ES
in manufacturing. Jayaraman and
Srivastava (1996) reviewed the applications
of ES in operations management, while the
survey of Liebowitz (1997) concerned the
use of ES technology in life support
systems.
Metaxiotis and Samouilidis (2000)
presented thoughts and estimations on the
important role of expert systems in medicine
and surveyed also the applications of ES in
production planning and scheduling
(Metaxiotis et al., 2001). However, this paper
has a different focus. Writing a fully
comprehensive survey of business
applications of ES in a broad sense is
objectively impracticable mainly due to their
big number recorded in literature. For this
reason, our paper emphasizes the
identification of the role of the operations
researcher in the current environment by
reviewing ES developments in a series of
application areas. This review thus aims to
create a big knowledge base for the
operations researcher, introducing him/her
to specific areas of ES applications and
indicating other areas fertile for research.
On the other hand, taking into
consideration similar reviews concerning
the use of neural networks in business
(Vellido et al., 1999, Smith and Gupta, 2000)
the authors wish to cultivate the ground for
further comparative discussion on these two
intelligent methodologies. A humorous but
fully justified approach of this discussion has
already been given by Liebowitz (2001) in the
Editorial of an issue of Expert Systems with
Applications: ``If you are a dog lover, build
expert systems; if you are a cat lover, build
neural networks''.
The expert systems technology
Basic components of expert systems
ES are one of the most commercially
successful branches of artificial intelligence
(AI). Welbank (1983) defines an expert system
as follows:
An expert system is a program which has a
wide base of knowledge in a restricted
domain, and uses complex inferential
reasoning to perform tasks which a human
expert could do.
In other words, an ES is a computer system
containing a well-organized body of
knowledge which emulates expert problem
solving skills in a bounded domain of
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[ 361 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
103/5 [2003] 361-368
#MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-5577]
[DOI 10.1108/02635570310477415
Keywords
Expert systems,
Artificial intelligence,
Business development,
Operational research
Abstract
Intelligent solutions, based on
expert systems (ES), to solve
complicated practical problems in
various sectors are becoming
more and more widespread
nowadays. Expert systems are
being developed and deployed
worldwide in myriad applications,
mainly because of their symbolic
reasoning and its explanation
capabilities. Provides an overview
for the operations researcher of
the expert systems methodology,
as well as their historical and
current use in business. Aims to
present and focus on the wide
range of business areas of ES
applications, avoiding an in-depth
analysis of all the applications ±
with varying success ± recorded in
the literature. Reveals that,
although still regarded as a novel
methodology, ES are shown to
have matured to the point of
offering real practical benefits in
many of their applications.
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