Application Domain: Human Resource Management and Information Systems
Purpose: To assist the HR director in selecting internal managers to fill available positions.
Features: Many database systems can select potential candidates for a given position; however, ADEQUAT goes the extra mile and can choose the best candidate according to your criteria. ADEQUAT is able to score each selected individual according to customized rules covering qualifications for the position, mobility and career development. Then selected managers are ranked and pros & cons are explicitly displayed allowing the HR director to make the best possible decision.ADEQUAT can usually be connected to the HR database or Corporate database for initial loading and updating purposes; however, it works in stand alone mode while selecting candidates.
Comments: About 15 copies of this system have been sold to banks, large retail stores and large industrial companies. Unit price was approximately $75,000.
Purpose: Assists doctors, researchers and students to make more accurate diagnoses of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images.
Features: Trains medical students in reading MRI's and provides recommendations to MRI scanner operators. MR Colleague can also be used to keep doctors up-to-date on new procedures.The user runs MR Colleague to assist his diagnosis. The system asks questions, and the user can either answer directly, or access images significant of the possible answers, or skip the question. At the end, one or more diagnoses can be provided with associated probabilities. In addition, a library of common diseases with associated MRI images can be accessed. Over 1800 images of verified cases are available.
Comments: Approximately 25 copies have been sold world wide at $10,000 each.
Application Domain: Configuration builder for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)
Purpose: To assist engineers to produce sales proposals with economical PLC configurations based on client specifications.
Features: PLC's are modular industrial computers. Building a complete configuration serving a customer need is difficult while many association, exclusion and preference rules must be followed. CMAO builds configurations using the client's requirements. The configuration is then refined through additional relevant questions. When the technical configuration is complete, pricing and discounts are computed and the final proposal is printed, combining the technical aspects with standard or specific legal terms and conditions. Finally, the proposal is stored, ready for modifications and iterations.
Comments: Over 100 copies of this custom application have been sold. The total development budget was approximately $250,000.
Application Domain: Industrial systems
Purpose: To diagnose failures in industrial systems. Solveur provides one or more potential causes along with their associated probabilities.
Features: Solveur is also a learning system. First, users describe an initial set of failures and the contexts in which they occurred. Then they allow the system to perform an initial diagnosis. At this point Solveur is used in the actual context. When it fails (no solution or wrong solution provided) users improve the system by describing the new failure and its associated context; thus, allowing more accurate diagnoses in the future. While being used, the system becomes more and more accurate making a quick and precise diagnosis of the failure.
Comments: Solveur has proven especially useful in integrating a maintenance team's experience or recording the knowledge of senior personnel before a move or retirement. Approximately 50 copies have been sold at $7,000 each. Solveur has also been tested in financial environments to select the best product combination for individual investors.
Application Domain: Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
Purpose: To analyze the causes and the consequences of failures (dysfunction) in large, heterogeneous systems. Failures are described together with their possible causes and probabilities, their consequences and associated severity enabling System designers to reduce dysfunctions, develop a means of diagnosis for when they do occur and arrange appropriate system maintenance.
Features: Because failures can generate other failures a criticality factor is computed linking each cause with each possible consequence. A specific algorithm has been developed to compute the criticality of causes, failures and the whole systems.
Comments: Such analysis can be made on existing systems to failure analysis and maintenance scheduling, or while designing a new system to improve its reliability and ease of maintenance.
Application Domain: Real-time monitoring of an automated factory.
Purpose: Factories are usually automated through networks of PLC's and their associated computerized supervision. Generally such systems are excellent for normal operations - start-up and shut-down. However, they often work poorly in transient modes, lower speed operations, anticipating problems and monitoring transitions to normal operations.
Features: Callaid is permanently scanning the real-time data base built into the PLC network to diagnose the current context. When a problem is identified or anticipated, it is reported to the operators. A context dependent simulation model is run and a path to return to normal is proposed. When approved, the path is monitored closely and a difference to that path may generate a new alert, new diagnosis and a re-run of the simulation model. Extensive reports of actual events were recorded to improve the system.
Comments: Callaid was sold to a car manufacturer, for its highly automated paint shop. The client stated that the system's cost was recovered within a few weeks.
Application Domain: Equipment maintenance
Purpose: To prioritize maintenance and repair actions.
Features: This customer has to repair hundreds of broken systems (mechanical and electronic equipment). The main problem is deciding the order in which the equipment should be repaired.Repairs are achieved along three different steps: failure diagnosis, subcontract of the repair and in-house repair. Three expert systems are scoring the broken systems, depending on their status, to rank them and decide which ones will be diagnosed, sub-contracted or repaired in-house.
Rules are based on MTBF and MTTR, spare part availability, human resource and repair equipment availability and criticality of the need for the system in the field.
Comments: An evaluation of SAGA's performance demonstrated that its rankings were as good as those made by the best maintenance managers 85% of the time. The remaining 15% resulted from circumstances unknown to the system.
Application Domain: Health and lifestyle changes
Purpose: Numerous health problems can be improved through lifestyle changes, including, nutrition, exercise, stress management or reducing drug consumption. Sufficient support for these lifestyle changes must occur in the patient's environment to be sustained over the long term and be most effective.
Features: Using a variety of means and media, the system continuously monitors each patient in their own environment. Pathways performs periodic assessments and defines new case plans based on personal objectives, need for change and strength of the "network support".
Comments: Commercialization is in start-up phase.
Application Domain: Evaluating compliance to regulations
Purpose: Dakota Auditor is used to identify environmental regulations and evaluate a given facility's compliance. This system was developed for a business that designs, develops and markets an expert system to assist environmental regulation auditors do their jobs - identify legal requirements and evaluate compliance, document findings and monitor corrective actions.
Features: The product collects information and builds reports about which environmental regulations apply to a given facility and its compliance to those regulations. The auditor enters information about the plant under inspection and then, based on that information, identifies which legal regulations apply and presents the requirements for compliance. Numerous "what if" situations are proposed enabling the user to discover the applicable regulations in each of those scenarios and construct the necessary reports.
Comments: A specific inference engine was developed for this application allowing forward and backward chaining. This technology enabled the implementation of break-through application features, making Dakota Auditor the standard in its market. Several hundred copies were sold and are regularly updated in the field.
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