Prediction of surface finish in turning process is a difficult but important task. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) can reliably pred ict the surface finish but require a lot of training data. To overcome this prob lem, an expert system approach is proposed, wherein it will be possible to predi ct the surface finish from limited experiments. The expert system contains a kno wledge base prepared from machining data handbooks and number of experiments con ducted by turning steel rods, over a wide range of cutting parameters. With this knowledge base, the expert system predicts surface finish for different tool-w ork-piece combinations, by carrying out few experiments for each case. The prop osed expert system model is validated by carrying out a number of experiments. Prediction of surface finish in turning process is a difficult but important task. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) can reliably pred ict the surface finish but require a lot of training data. To overcome this prob lem, an expert system approach is proposed, where will be possible to predi ct the surface finish from limited experiments. The expert system contains a kno wledge base prepared from machining data handbooks and number of experiments con ducted by turning steel rods, over a wide range of cutting parameters. With this knowledge base, the expert system predicts surface finish for different tool-w ork-piece combinations, by carrying out few experiments for each case. The prop osed expert system model is validated by carrying out a number of experiments.