Penetration of expert systems into the core operations of major companies is progressing at a much faster rate in Japan than in the US or Europe, and the big Japanese Dai-ichi Kangyoo bank is to put in a budget revision administration expert system in 361 branches around Japan: the system was developed in conjunction with Hitachi using Hitachi’s ES/Kernel expert system shell; this presently runs on the Hitachi 2050 Unix workstation but in future will also be installed on a mainframe to provide a larger inference base; the expert system will take over the work currently done by a roving staff member who visits each branch in turn to set its budget on the basis of changes in the number of customers and the turnover, and the population it serves; it will even handle assessment of loan applications, in trials getting through 200 in half a day.
