A framework for developing and evaluating expert systems for temporal business applications

摘要

Many management problems that lend themselves to an expert system solution include ‘time’ as a problem dimension, yet expert system requirements for temporal categories such as monitoring and planning have not been enumerated and analyzed for business applications. This paper presents a framework for systems developers in business to use when selecting or using an expert system shell for temporal problems. We describe the framework first in terms of the requirements for temporal expert systems and the problems that meeting some of these requirements produce. We then expand the framework by evaluating features that support temporal requirements in expert systems that are either currently available or are in development, Finally, we demonstrate the use of the framework by applying it to an in-depth analysis of a particular expert system shell for a workflow application.