The aim of this book is to provide industrial engineers as well as manufacturing managers with basic knowledge about expert systems technology, so they can employ it as a tool for more competitive manufacturing. This work is neither a textbook nor a technical reference book, but a tutorial for managers about the impact of new knowledge-based technologies on advances in manufacturing.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1, “The Broadening Perspective of Knowledge Engineering in the Manufacturing Industry,” introduces the need to revitalize the manufacturing cycle, and proposes AI as the technical solution that is apt to improve the robustness and adaptability of automation. It analyzes organizational as well as technological solutions in the broad field of manufacturing. Some important industrial uses of expert systems are also described. Part2, “Computer-aided Design, Production Scheduling, Quality Management, Marketing, and Computer Integrated Manufacturing,” uses the concepts illustrated earlier to show real applications in emerging areas such as new CAD systems, production scheduling, and quality assurance.

The chapters in the first part are organized as follows. The first chapter, “Planning for Excellence in Manufacturing,” emphasizes the role of manufacturing as central in strategic planning, more important than marketing and finance. Chorafas considers the small results so far obtained from large investments in automation to be a consequence of the error of putting new technologies into old work organizations. The proposed company is “rich in professionals and thin in managers.” Chapter 2, “Revitalizing Factory Automation,” is about the need for a new architecture for the factory, where decisions can be reached at the operative levels. In the third chapter, “Knowledge Engineering in the Manufacturing Industry,” we find an impressive list of all the functions and tools in industry that benefit from expert system technology. Grouping all the systems into three classes, the author derives percentages of applications (consultation and diagnosis 42.5, planning and design 30, and monitoring and control 27.5) that confirm that expert systems are moving toward real-time tasks, where the analysis of sensor data is crucial.

In the fourth chapter, “Practical Examples with Expert Systems,” as well as in chapters 5 and 6, some expert systems solutions are illustrated. The justification for using expert systems emerges, in a pragmatic way, from the fact that companies that have done so have obtained improvements. Chapter 7, “The Impact of Second Generation Solutions,” is about fuzzy logic–based systems and neural networks. Chapter 8, “Advances in Robotics,” shows why the robotics used to make products faster and cheaper needs to be improved in sensing and autonomy.

The second part contains eight chapters that are more oriented to the solutions of specific problems. The choice of problem domains depends on their impact on manufacturing more than on their scientific value. They are CAD, simulators, production planning, production scheduling, quality assurance, marketing and distribution, CIM, and new CIM architectures. In this part of the book, the main principle is to show how to achieve better systems integration using examples from industrial cases. The main guideline is that it is useless to add automation to an existing machine; a better solution is to think globally of design, human factors, and management. AI tools are useful for technological progress because they add a way to make abstractions and to reason effectively about complex models. Thus, they can help make the contribution of technical people effective for the management of the whole factory.

An index of terms concludes the book. No references are provided except for a few works by the author indicated in footnotes in the text. A lack of clear definitions for technical terms may generate confusion, especially when terms are common to AI and organization practice.

The book is not a technical computer science work, so it is difficult to compare it with other texts on expert systems. The few I have seen with the same aim are less complete than this work. I appreciate the author’s style. He maintains the reader’s interest by interleaving experiences and short discussions, then generalizing to ideas and guidelines. He has a strong belief in the subject and is convincing. The book is stimulating for its intended audience. It can also be read by computer science people to increase their awareness of the importance of technology in social changes.