How Can Air Force Civil Engineers Use Expert Systems?

Expert systems have great promise for increasing productivity and effectiveness. As budget cuts continue into the future, Air Force Civil Engineering will be increasingly concerned with its productivity and effectiveness. This thesis searched for Air Force Civil Engineering expert system applications using a preliminary selection criteria to discern the knowledge areas having expert system potential. Interviews were conducted with experienced civil engineers to gather the ideas. The primary objective of this thesis was to develop a preliminary selection criteria. Donald Watermans selection criteria was used as the basis. The questions within the selection criteria were reordered with the most discriminating questions first, to eliminate unfruitful ideas quickly. Other discriminating questions were added to the selection criteria as necessary for clarification and amplification. Eight experienced civil engineers were interviewed during two rounds of questioning. The first round of interviews solicited and screened ideas, using the preliminary selection criteria. The first round generated twenty-one ideas, which were combined into fifteen proposals. In the second round, interviewees selected proposals having the greatest potential benefit to Air Force Civil Engineering in order. Five proposals emerged from the second round of interviewing Job OrderWork Order Management, Design Schedule Management, Beddown of New Aircraft Systems, Facility Constraints on New Aircraft Designs, and Force DevelopmentForce Structure. Theses.