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East Lansing, Mich.(517) 3553276

The expert system SPINPRO is givingBeckman Instruments a competitive ad-

vantage. SPINPRO makes the centrifugessold by Beckman Instruments much easier touse and significantly more efficient. Labtechnicians can reduce run times by as muchas 70% ofthe time formerly required.

The system, developed internally at Beck-man Instruments, is soldfor $2,600 and runson an IBM PC. Because of SPINPRO, Beck-man Instruments is now gaining marketshare for its ultracentrifugation systems.

MENTOR was developed by Honeywell togive its field technicians a portable expertsystem for troubleshooting and performingpreventive maintenance for large refrigera-tion equipment in the field.

Formerly constrained by a limited numberofrefrigeration experts, Honeywell can nowsupport a large number of less-trained fieldtechnicians with a portable expert assistant.MENTOR has improved both the quality andefficiency of Honeywell field technicians. Asaresult, Honeywell has been able to lower theservice fee charged to its customers.

ExperTAX is used on IBM PCs inCoopers& Lybrand branch offices around the coun-try. An expert in corporate tax accrual plan-ning, ExperTAXhelps taxplanners save timeand give better advice to their corporateclients.

According to Dr. David Shpilberg, manag-ing partnerofthe DecisionSupport Group atCoopers & Lybrand, "ExperTAXreduces thetime elapsed from start to finish, maintainsthe quality of the output, and reduces thetimedemands and pressures on high-level ex-pertise." The expertise of over 30 highlytrained people is captured in ExperTAX.This expert system will never retire and theexpertisewill always bepreserved as valuablecorporateinformation.

AIEXPERT ■ JANUARYI9B7

WAVES

Artificial Intelligence forCompetitive Advantage

BY EUGENE WANG

SPINPRO, MENTOR, and ExperTAX areexamples of expert systems running on PCsthat are helping companies gain a competi-tiveadvantage in the marketplace using arti-ficial intelligence. Much ofthecriticism ofAItechnology centers around the fact thatmanyareas in the field, such as computer learning,are not well understood and have not re-sulted in systems that simulate human prob-

Companies thatdon't use AI in the

next few years will beat a competitive

disadvantagelem solving. However, it is not necessary tounderstand how the mind works or even sim-ulate human behavior to reap significantcommercial benefits in applying AI technol-ogy today.

In thecorporatesector, the term "AI" typi-cally refers to its fastest growing segment, ex-pert systems. Expert systems are one of theripest areas for commercialuse ofAI becausethe process of developinganexpert system isnow understood.

Integrating expert systems into corporateoperations can have tremendous financialbenefit. For example, Digital EquipmentCorp. hasreported thatXCON, its expert sys-tem for configuring VAX computers, is sav-ing the company $18 million annually.

Expert systems differ in important re-spects from applications developed usingstandard data processing techniques. Expertsystems can perform difficult tasks at expert

8

Over two-thirdsofFortune

500companies have

AI projectsThe reason so many organizations are in-

vesting in AI is the tremendous potential im-pact to the bottom line. AI can improve thebottom line of corporations by increasingproductivity, improving products or services,reducing training costs, decreasing laborcosts, ensuring consistent decision making,and preserving corporate knowledge. Butwhat happens to the company that waitswhile competitors areforging ahead in com-mercializing this technology?

According to Dr. Karl Wiig, director of AIat Arthur D. Little Inc., AI technology willbein widespread use within corporations by theearly 19905. Companies that do not developexpertise in tapping this technology withinthe next few years will be at a competitivedisadvantage.

Expert system applications are sproutingup in all areas of business and industry. Weare seeing AI development and delivery inthe financial and insurance arenas,aerospace, manufacturing, medicine, engi-neering, diagnostics, design and test equip-ment, computer-aided instruction, and gov-ernment. With the introduction of the Intel80386, a microprocessorrunning atLISP ma-chine speeds with aphysical address space of4 gigabytes, even the largest AI applicationscan now be deliveredon the desktop.

Any complex technology takes time tolearn. AI has the potential to revolutionizethebusiness environment in which corpora-tions compete. The time to start harnessingAI is now, to gain acompetitive advantage ina fast-movingworld. ri j

Eugene Wang received a B.S. in computerscience. Wang is vicepres-

identofGoldHill Computers

oped or are under development in the U.S Can Landau

alone. Over two-thirds ofFortune 500 compa- regional

nies currently have AI projects staffed and AmanaglrsG

under way. ThetotalAI marketis projected to Mary Christine Gordongrow from over $1 billion in 1986 to over $4billion in 1990. Expert systems are projectedto grow from $145 million in 1986to $810 mil- coordinatorlion in 1990. Henriette Gordon

MARKETINGCONSULTANT

Beatrice C. Blatteis

CIRCULATIONMANAGER

Donna F Wilson

CIRCULATIONASSISTANTCathy Sulak

ADMINISTRATIVEASSISTANTS

Keith LoveJoanK. Miller

CONTROLLERLauren Kalkstein

ACCOUNTINGASSISTANTJones Wong

WHOLESALECOORDINATORNicola Sullivan

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levels of performance. Expertise consists of I V^^Pj|knowledge about aparticular domain, under- I nVI Istanding of domain problems, and skill at I HL vlsolving these problems. tWimM V fJMm

Over 1,000expert systemshave been devel- publisher