| Administrative Control Expert Systems (ACES) can be developed to control an administrative process in the same way that PERT, CPM, and Gantt charts control a project. The fundamental difference between an administrative process and a project is that tasks to be performed are determined by policy and procedures, not a fixed schedule. Traditional administrative control systems are driven by data and rules, called policy, procedures, objectives, and budgets. Expert systems are, likewise, driven by their data and rule base. The ACES framework makes explicit the implicit similarity between administrative control systems and expert systems.;A limited example of ACES rule structure, data, and processing is included in an appendix.;The overall design of the ACES framework and each of its five major subsystems are described. A methodology is presented to allow the integration of an ACES into an existing transaction processing environment. Extensions to the expert system methodology are presented to provide capabilities to specifically support administrators. Security issues for expert systems are discussed, along with the integration of microcomputers into a mainframe ACES environment. |
