EXPLORING THE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH EXPERT-SYSTEMS SUCCESS

As the widespread use and company dependency on expert systems (ES) in crease, so does the need to assess their value and to ensure implement ation success. This study identifies and emprically tests eight major variables proposed in the literature as determinants of ES success, in this case measured in terms of users satisfaction. IBM's Corporate Ma nufacturing Expert Systems Project Center collected information from 6 9 project managers to support the study. The results clearly support t he hypothesized relationships and suggest the need for ES project mana gers to pay special attention to these determinants of ES implementati on success. ES success is directly related to the quality of developer s and the ES shells used, end-user characteristics, and degree of user involvement in ES development, as each has been defined in this study . For exploratory purposes, the component items for each of these majo r variables were correlated with the components of user satisfaction. Based on the results, several recommendations are proposed for ES proj ect managers to enhance the likelihood of project success, including: adding problem difficulty as a criterion for ES application selection; increasing ES developer training to improve people skills, having the ability to model and use a systems approach in solving business probl ems; shaping end-user attitudes and expectations regarding ES; improvi ng the selection of domain experts; more thoroughly understanding the ES impact on end-user jobs; restricting the acquisition of ES shells b ased on a proposed set of criteria; and ensuring a proper match of ES development techniques and tools to the business problem at hand.