Machinery selection using expert systems and linear programming

Abstract Information on a Farm-level INtelligent Decision Support system, FINDS, is presented. This system is desgined to aid in farm machinery selection through its use and interpretation of a farm management linear program (LP) which has been used in extension workshops to assist farm producers with farm-level decisions. Considerable expertise is required to interpret this farm management LP and it has not been used to its potential because there is a shortage of experts to work with individual producers. FINDS incorporates the expertise needed to use the LP for selecting farm machinery. The goal of FINDS is to help the user find machinery sets that can increase farm profit. The knowledge base of FINDS was structured using IF-THEN rules and LISP functions. With the rules and functions, FINDS automatically runs the LP model, extracts and interprets the relevant output, and recommends farm machinery changes that can increase farm profitability.