INTRODUCTION

The last few years has seen a significant change in commercial KBS development. Organisations are now building KBS to solve specific business problems rather than simply to see what the technology can do. There has also been a move away from building KBS on stand alone PCs to using the corporate resources of networks, mini and Mainframe computers, and existing databases. As a result of these changes, two significant questions are now being regularly asked by organisations developing or interested in developing KBS:

• How can KBS be linked into existing systems to enhance their processing functions and make better use of data already held?

• What methods can be used to help build commercial applications using KBS techniques?

The key to these questions is the use of an integrated approach to the development of all IT systems. There are many methods available for conventional systems development, such as Information Engineering, SSADM, Jackson and Yourdon. There are also a number of KBS methods available or under development such as KADS, KEATS, and GEMINI. However, commercial organisations with well established procedures for conventional development do not want to use two different methods side-by-side, nor do they wish to discard their current conventional development method and replace it with a method claiming to cover all aspects of conventional and KBS development. Organisations therefore require some way of integrating KBS methods into their existing methods.