INFERENCE ENGINE WITH CONFLICT RESOLUTION BASED UPON THE AVAILABILTY OF A RESOURCE

An inference system is disclosed, the inference system comprising rule storing portion for storing a plurality of production rules, each of which is composed of an "if statement" and a "then statement", fact information storing portion for storing fact information, condition comparing portion for comparing the "if statement" of each production rule stores in the rule storing portion with the fact information stored in the fact information storing portion successively until a resource of the process system or the inference system is consumed, conflict resolving portion for selecting one of at least one production rule obtained as the results of the comparison by the condition comparing portion when the resource is consumed, and rule executing portion for executing the "then statement" of the production rule being selected by the conflict resolving.