An Incremental Approach to Maintenance: Its Influence on the Success of Expert System

The difficulty of maintenance has been stated as among the factors contributing to the abandonment of many commercial expert systems. Ripple down rules approach to knowledge acquisition and representation has made maintenance of such system easier and less expensive. This paper presents the insight gained from four healthcare organizations which are currently using Lab Wizard, an expert system which has been incorporated with ripple down rules technology. It is the findings from the work in progress to establish the factors leading to a long-term success of commercial expert systems. Qualitative data are gathered using case study approach, and analyzed using NVivo 8. The result shows that less difficult maintenance is one of the critical factors which can influence the success of expert system in routine use.