The Carnegie Group plans to train simple artificial neural networks to recognize fans and motors which are functioning poorly or about to fail, based on the sounds produced by those motors. In effect, they plan to automate the ability of master engineers to tell that something is wrong from the sound. They plan to link this capability to their existing automotive diagnosis system, a large-scale expert system related to the Service Bay Diagnostic System of Ford Motor Company. Such integration of expert systems and artificial neural networks could have substantial implications for quality control and preventive maintenance in the automobile industry.
