A Parts Selection Expert System to Increase Manufacturability

This paper describes the Parts Selection Advisor, a prototype expert system applied to component selection. The Parts Selection Advisor (PSA) condenses the diffuse knowledge of several manufacturing experts into a system that design engineers can use. By leveraging this store of manufacturing knowledge, an engineer can produce a product that will be more economical to manufacture. Manufacturing costs are reduced because the PSA helps the engineer select parts which fit the manufacturing process. In addition, the parts chosen are reliable components from preferred suppliers. This paper also addresses practical issues of expert system construction.