The objective of the CSL is to combine research specialties found in Industrial Engineering with those found in Computer Science to create intelligent systems. Researchers from Industrial Engineering concentrate mainly on answering the quations: What is knowledge? How do you acquire knowledge? Can you effectively use neural networks to acquire knowledge? How do you build a human/computer interface? How do you add computer vision to a knowledge based system? How do you immplement knowledge based simulation for manufacturing?

Researchers from Computer Science concentrate mainly on answering the questions: How do you mechanize knowledge representation, transfer, and sharing? What are characteristics of expert system building tools and how can they best be used to improve software productivity and quality? How can you improve the software life cycle process through the use of intelligent systems, models, and metrics? How can fuzzy logic and distributed knowledge bases be used to create complex knowledge based systems? Together the researchers from both departments design and build knowledge based systems. The CSL currently supports research in four program areas.