Manufacturing and welding engineering organisations have implemented information technology in a rather scattered and unorganized fashion over the last decade. Some areas have a high usage of information technology, others almost none. This has led to an isolated, unstructured situation where the benefits of information technology cannot he fully exploited. Expert systems have been developed over the last decade but have rarely found their application in daily practice. They are either too specialized or lack of basic database functionality. On the other hand, a number of database systems Jo r welding are used hut support quite often only standard documentation tasks. To generate real benefits, future systems have to consider and improve business, fabrication mid quality assurance processes, company and industry wide. They have to provide basic functionality mid welding knowledge embedded in a sophisticated, easy to use system. This paper introduces mi approach to satisfy these requirements mid also highlights some possible areas of application in the fabrication industries.
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