A Hybrid Expert System for Estimation of the Manufacturability of a Notional Design

Table 3

ES system files and functions.

Name of entity	Purpose	Interactions
Variable definition file	Define the variables, and the values they can assume	Edited by the user, read by the ES construction program
Rule definition file	Define the rule-base. The rule-base transforms the values of input variables into values for the output variables.	Edited by the user, read by the ES construction program
Control rule definition file	Define the meta-rules which allow or disallow the various input variables to be given a value at all	Edited by the user, used as meta-input to the ES execution program
ES construction program	Constructs the ES, updates the ES execution program, and executes that program, all at run-time	Edited by the programmer, is run by the user to then build and run the ES execution program
Weight array	Weights the criteria level outputs prior to final aggregation	Edited by the user, used as meta-input to the ES execution program
ES execution program	Accepts user input, runs the ES given that input, and presents the output of the expert system	Constructed by the ES construction program, edited by the programmer when needed