The practical application of rule and knowledge based system techniques to industrial processes

This paper concerns the application of rule and knowledge based techniques to the control and optimisation of industrial processes. It is based on work initiated by Blue Circle plc for the optimisation of the control of cement kilns. This work has resulted in the development of a commercial product, known as LINKman, which has been installed successfully in twenty three plants worldwide where it achieves substantial savings in fuel and improvements in quality. This paper looks at the techniques and discusses some of the practical issues involved in their application