An Expert System Methodology for SMEs and NPOs Page 1 of 12 AN EXPERT SYSTEM METHODOLOGY FOR SMEs AND NPOs

Traditionally Expert Systems (ES) require a full analysis of the business problem by a Knowledge Engineer (KE) to develop a solution. This inherently makes ES technology very expensive and beyond the affordability of the majority of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs). Therefore, SMEs and NPOs tend to only have access to off-the-shelf solutions to generic problems, which rarely meet the full extent of an organisation’s requirements. One existing methodological stream of research, Ripple-Down Rules (RDR) goes some of the way to being suitable to SMEs and NPOs as it removes the need for a knowledge engineer. This group of methodologies provide an environment where a company can develop large knowledge based systems themselves, specifically tailored to the company’s individual situation. These methods, however, require constant supervision by the expert during development, which is still a significant burden on the organisation. This paper discusses an extension to an RDR method, known as Rated MCRDR (RM) and a feature called prudence analysis. This enhanced methodology to ES development is particularly well suited to the development of ES in restricted environments such as SMEs and NPOs