Editorial

EDITORIALS This Fall issue marks the first time we have devoted the AI Figure 1 summarizes the results of a survey I ran in 1985. The idea originated a couple of depicts the number of AI based systems in the various stages years ago, and I'm pleased to see the actual implementation. of research, development, field service and production use. Mark Fox, Special Editor for this issue, is to be congratulated It is my guess that the survey represents about 15% of the for a fine job of selecting some of the best authorities in systems currently under development. The incursion of AI the field and working with them to produce an excellent survey into the manufacturing world has reached the point that discussions of the current state of the art in AI for manufacturing. The quality of all the articles was so high that we didn't want to exclude any of them.