This book is aimed at both researchers and practitioners, and provides a collection of expert systems in manufacturing and production engineering along with their knowledge base and rules. We believe that inclusion of the knowledge base and associated rules is essential if practitioners are to derive full benefit from these expert systems. This unique book is the result of our belief and the efforts of our distinguished colleagues who subscribe to this philosophy.

A total of 15 different expert systems are included in this book. These expert systems are preceded by an introductory chapter written by Kuo, Preface XVll Mital and Anand. The expert system rules are included on a floppy disk in ASCII and can be easily accessed. These rules and the description of the expert system's structure should assist the usersin customizing these systems.

Overall, the expert systems included in this volume cover a fairly wide variety of manufacturing and production engineering topics.