ABSTRACT
The critiquing process is used for evaluation through the expert knowledge of all the participating domains. This chapter briefly describes the methodologies available for critiquing a solution. Critiquing is a knowledge-based activity and a framework can be devised to represent the knowledge pertaining to the critiquing of solution/s. The chapter provides a generic framework and also describes particular implementation of GENeric CRItiquing Tool (GENCRIT). It discusses the use of GENCRIT in a Knowledge-Based Expert System (KBES) environment with application examples. In a knowledge-based approach to engineering design, the design task is formulated as a search problem and some control strategy is applied to search through the state space to arrive at one or more solutions. Concurrent engineering is emerging as an important knowledge-based approach in mechanical engineering. Criticism involves evaluating a design in terms of its effectiveness in satisfying design objectives and constraints.
