An Overview of Production Systems

This paper is an attempt to provide an analysis and overview of recurrent themes in production systems, as well as a conceptual framework by which many of the seemingly disparate efforts can be viewed, both in relation to each other, and to other methodologies.

Abstract

Since production systems were first proposed in 1943 as a general computational mechanism, the methodology has seen a great deal of development and has been applied to a diverse collection of problems. Despite the wide scope of goals and perspectives demonstrated by the various systems, there appear to be many recurrent themes. This paper is an attempt to provide an analysis and overview of those themes, as well as a conceptual framework by which many of the seemingly disparate efforts can be viewed, both in relation to each other, and to other methodologies. Accordingly, the authors use the term 'production system' in a broad sense, and attempt to show how most systems which have used the term can be fit into the framework. The comparison to other methodologies is intended to provide a view of PS characteristics in a broader context, with primary reference to procedurally-based techniques, but with reference also to some of the current developments in programming and the organization of data and knowledge bases.