MESSINA — A Marketing Expert System for the Screening of Ideas for New-Product-Alternatives

In order to achieve a good position in the market place or to maintain a healthy organization, nearly all firms have to develop new products. This involves high risk, because over 50 % of all the products introduced into the market have resulted in flops. Therefore it is necessary to establish a powerful screening instrument that identifies unsuccessful projects in an early stage and thereby reduces costs. Despite this requirement many firms don’t possess a powerful screening procedure. On the other side, many results from empirical studies have been published from which it is possible to deduce the knowledge base for such a procedure. As screening is similar to diagnosing, an expert system is appropriate to provide a user-friendly screening procedure.