ABSTRACT
Expert systems are ideal for tasks involving reasoning based on heuristics and expert knowledge of the domain. The engineering design domain has proved to be far more complex than the domains for which knowledge-based programming techniques were originally applied. One major source of complexity is that design tasks cannot be addressed through knowledge-based techniques alone. Design of any engineering system or component usually involves the participation of multiple specialists. In practice, each specialist is narrowly focused and tends to have limited knowledge of other domains with which the specialist must communicate and interact. Design process models have resulted from research in design theory and have offered a new insight into the way integrated systems need to be developed. The chapter focuses on Concurrent Engineering, which is emerging as a new methodology that offers potential for developing integrated systems to meet the future needs of the engineering industry.
