email : smc รช scms .rgu .ac .uk Knowledge based systems are being applied in ever increasing numbers . The development of knowledge acquisition tools has eased the ''Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck'' . More recently there has been a demand for mechanisms to assure the quality of knowledge based systems . Checking the contents of the knowledge base and the performance of the knowledge based systems at various stages throughout its life cycle is an important component of quality assurance . Hence , the demand now is for verification and validation tools . However , traditionally , verification and validation have identified possible faults in the knowledge base . In contrast , this paper advocates the use of knowledge refinement to correct identified faults in parallel with the ongoing verification and validation , thus easing the progress towards correct knowledge based systems . An automated refinement tool is described which uses the output from verification and validation tools to assemble evidence from which the refinement process can propose repairs . It is hoped that automated refinement in parallel with validation and verification may ease the ''Knowledge V&V Bottleneck'' .