An expert system for the selection of production planning and control software packages

This paper presents a rule-based expert system that can be used for the selection of a suitable production planning and control (PPC) software package to be applied in a manufacturing firm. A production system's typology and a compact PPC software reference model are included in the knowledge base which has been created. The inferences made are based on rules that relate a semantic network of PPC software features with a semantic network of production systems' attributes. The results given by the expert system include the module architecture and the set of features of the PPC software package, which are applicable in a certain manufacturing setting.