A comprehensive understanding of machining operation planning, which covers both the machining domain and the managerial domain, is essential to assure a practical and satisfactory decision- making process. This paper presents an expert system approach to integrating economic and manufacturing systems during the evaluation of machining operation planning. the manufacturing system functions as an alternative generator that provides meaningful and practical plans to ensure product quality. The management system performs cost analysis for the alternatives and makes the decision in selecting the optimal plan based on the defined goal. A simulation-based inductive learning process is adopted to acquire the engineering knowledge for machining operation. The modularity architecture of the reasoning system illustrates the information flow between the manufacturing and management systems, which balances their needs for efficient machining of a quality product.