A framework for KBS/conventional methods integration

Commercial organisations have been experimenting with knowledge based systems since the mid-1980s and are now realising that KBS are a potentially very powerful and very useful means of making better use of existing expertise, computer facilities and data. Companies are now building KBS to solve specific business problems rather than simply to see what the technology can do. As a result of these changes, organisations are asking how KBS can be integrated into conventional systems and what methods can be used to develop such integrated systems. Commercial organisations with well established procedures for conventional development do not generally want to have to use two different methods side-by-side to develop their software, nor do they wish to discard their current conventional development method and replace it by a method of claiming to cover all aspects of conventional and KBS development. The authors discuss how organisations require some way of integrating KBS methods into their existing methods