Classes of Expert System:

The expert system has following sub classes:

(a) The consultant

(b) The expert interface or intelligent front end

(c) Assistant

(d) The idiot servant.

(a) The consultant:

A consultant is an expert person, who possesses a high level of
expertise in the area. He guide and educate the executives regarding
establishing the expert system.

(b) The expert interface or intelligent front end:

This consultant is an expert on using some complex computer system
or operation and assists an inexperience user to use the established
expert system.

(c) Assistant:
These people have a lower level of expertise than those persons, which
undertake routine job and leaves the executives to make final difficult
decisions. This is the easiest and cheapest class of expert system to
build and has importance in business.

(d) The idiot servant:

These workers have a small amount of intelligence, and low level of
expertise, and a great deal of information. The work of this class is to
use its limited expertise to decide what information it should retrieve
and offer to its user. The most common example of this class is
maintenance expert, which retrieves detailed information on part of a
machine as and when they are required.

Advantages, benefits and uses of expert system to the user

are as follows:
1. It improves quality by providing consistent advice and by making
reduction in the error rate.

2. Expert systems are reliable and they do not overlook relevant

information and potential solutions.

3. It leads to cost reduction as the human expertise is costly.

4. Expert system also has educational benefits as it gives training,

provides experience & explanation facilities that can be used as a
teaching device.

5. It increases output as an expert system works faster than the human

beings. As the expert system is computer based system, it requires
fewer people and hence reduces the cost.

6. Expert system makes complex equipment’s to work.

7. It enhances problem solving as top expert’s judgement is allowed

into the analysis in enhancing the problem solving & increases the
user’s understanding through explanation.

8. Expert system is compatible with many managers’ decision styles

because of their use of judgment.
9. It is not subject to stress.

10. An expert system can outperform a single human expert in many

problem situations as it is faster & consistent.

11. Expert system can be used to solve problems whose complexities

exceed human ability that is scope of knowledge exceeds any one
individuals’ knowledge.

12. Expert system helps to preserve and reproduce knowledge of

experts.

13. Expert system built a knowledge based data base for the
organisation.

Limitations of Expert System:

Limitations, problems and demerits of an expert system are
as follows:
1. It is hard, even for a highly skilled expert to abstract good
situational assessment when he is under time pressure.

2. Expert system performs well with specific types of operational and

analytical tasks.

3. The designing and construction of expert system require expert

engineers, they are rare and expensive. This limitation makes an
expert system very costly.

4. Expert system excels only in solving specified type of problems in a

limited domain of knowledge.
5. The vocabulary that experts use for expressing facts & relations is
frequently limited.

6. Another limitation is that most experts have no independent means

of checking whether these conclusions are reasonable or not.

7. The approach of each expert to the assessment of the situation may

be different, yet it may be correct.

8. Expert system is comparatively costly to develop and maintain

Meaning of Expert System:

An expert system is the highest form of management computing office
automation which allows the communication and manipulation of
documents.

Decision support systems aid in problem solving by allowing for

manipulation of data and models.