Way back in the day (circa 1990), I worked on the ICADS (now called CADRC)
project at CalPoly SLO that did similar things for Architectural design CAD
systems. Pretty cool...

See:

http://www.cadrc.calpoly.edu/

I'm sure this can be done for other domains as well.

alan

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Jason Morris
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 4:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: JESS: Case Based Reasoning with Rules


Hi Rich,

Hybrid (case-based/rule-based) systems are an absolutely fascinating
concept, and I have been wondering about their implications and
possibilities for some time also.

My original interest in expert systems came by way of involvement in
developing online performance-support tools for mid-range, computer-aided
design software.  My though was:  Why can't CAD software really help an
engineer do "engineering" while he or she is creating geometry.  Right now,
CAD tools are reaching a feature-functionality parity where they basically
do all the same things inside the same performance envelope.  I was looking
for innovative product differentiators, and I saw an opportunity to add real
design intelligence to the tools.

As an example, picture a CAD tool that could:

[]  Interactively and in real-time monitor your geometry creation and point
out potential stress concentrations, point out violations of ASME  or
company standards, or other conflicts with other design constraints not
related to geometry.

[] Apply "design patterns" from existing designs or "best-practices" (use
cases), or compare geometry creation intent to standard
design-for-manufacturing (DFM) or design-for-assembly (DFA) principles to
catch problems before they occur, or deduce a best design approach given
company standards and methods (use rules).

Does this sound too far fetched?  I didn't think so then... and with tools
like Jess and FuzzyJess, I certainly don't now.  Is it a big undertaking?
Without question!  I have no illusions about how huge this would be to do.

Management will always say, "That's cool, but what's the business case? What
customer problem are you trying to solve?"  I think that one could claim
that such a system, by folding actual engineering knowledge into the
geometry creation process and leveraging accumulated corporate knowledge,
would:

* Reduce time-to-market by collapsing the overall time to design and
prototype a viable system (promote design reuse).
* Reduce manufacturing and assembly costs by catching conflicts before they
hit the production floor.
* Push risky processes further up the development process where they can be
caught and eliminated quickly before they cause problems down-stream.

Given the esoteric and very non-conventional nature of the proposal,
convincing management about the ROI enough that it ever got funded as a
project was impossible.  I hate to accuse management of being narrow-minded,
but as in most industries, there are long-established ways of doing things
in CAD, and the powers that be were (and are) loath to deviate from
following them.

So, at the time, I didn't have the programming or knowledge engineering
experience to even prototype such a system, but now I do.  I'd give my
eye-teeth to work on such a project!  I'd be very interested to hear your
further thoughts as well as anyone else's on the general hybrid subject.

Q. What companies are applying hybrid systems to mechanical design?  Does
anyone have some examples?

BTW - thanks for all your replies on other threads so far.

-JM
------
Jason Morris
Morris Technical Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.morristechnicalsolutions.com
fax/phone: 503.692.1088
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Rich Halsey
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 8:51 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: JESS: Case Based Reasoning with Rules


Hi All,

I have been thinking about Case Based Reasoning (CBR) and it would seem that
if a rule-based system could (1) determine which objects it was matching on,
(2) use Java reflection to list the object methods used for the predicates,
and (3) retrieve within some repository all the objects that fit  (1) and
(2)  and assert them into working memory, then CBR would be a natural
extension of a rule-based system.

Any thoughts ??

Rich Halsey

--------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, send the words 'unsubscribe jess-users [EMAIL PROTECTED]' in
the BODY of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT to the list (use your own
address!) List problems? Notify [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, send the words 'unsubscribe jess-users [EMAIL PROTECTED]'
in the BODY of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT to the list
(use your own address!) List problems? Notify [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply via email to