rules and a knowledge base 46 comprised of apply rules inference engine 42 allows sootblowing optimization system 30 to achieve prioritized actions based on the propose rules of knowledge base 44 and the apply rules of knowledge base 46 the propose and apply rules of knowledge bases 44 and 46 may be determined through expert knowledge sources such as application engineers textbooks and journals the propose rules of knowledge base 44 are used to determine one or more proposed actions for addressing various issues relating to boiler performance e g boiler efficiency at least one trigger condition i e condition s associated with a boiler performance issue at least one enabling condition i e condition s for determining whether sootblowing can be currently initiated in a particular zone and a proposed action with associated rank are associated with each propose rule inference engine 42 evaluates all of the propose rules of knowledge base 44 to determine a generated list of proposed actions inference engine 42 adds a proposed action to the generated list of proposed actions only if all of the following are satisfied a the trigger condition s associated with a propose rule and b the enabling condition s associated with a propose rule fig5 a 5e illustrate a sample set of propose rules i e rules 1 17 rules 1 14 of the propose rules are examples of u201c fixed rank u201d rules while rules 15.