OPGEN: The Evolution of an Expert System for Process Planning

The operations sheets generator (OPGEN) is an expert system that helps industrial engineers at the Hazeltine manufacturing and operations facilities plan the assembly of printed circuit boards. In this article, we describe the evolution of OPGEN from its initial development in the Hazeltine research laboratories to its routine use in an integrated manufacturing environment. We describe our approaches to the problem that occurred during the development , integration, and rehosting of OPGEN and provide some methodological guidelines to expert system builders who are concerned with the final delivery of an expert system.