DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EXPERT INFORMATION-SYSTEM (BRITE) USED IN TECHNICAL-SUPPORT OF MEDICAL DIAGNOSTICS CUSTOMERS

We developed BRITE (Bringing Resources and Information to Employees), an expert information retrieval system, for problem solving and retrie ving technical product information. Specialists in our Technical Assis tance Center (TAC) use the BRITE system on a Pentium workstation to ac cess information in < 3 s. Manuals, technical bulletins, parts lists, and administrative tools such as word processing and network fax are a vailable electronically. The system allows consistent troubleshooting and definition of customers' problems by TAC specialists. BRITE seamle ssly integrates expert system, document retrieval, and relational data base technologies; the system runs on a token ring local area network, which is part of a Ciba Coming Diagnostics wide area network. Informa tion received over the wide area network is used to develop and update BRITE daily. BRITE is kept current by input or troubleshooting and ne w applications from TAC specialists.