[comp.ai] IJCAI-89 Workshops on Manufacturing

dchandra@isl1.ri.cmu.edu (Dundee Navinchandra) (03/31/89)

                 AI IN MANUFACTURING WORKSHOPS AT IJCAI 1989
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The AAAI Special Interest Group on Manufacturing (SIGMAN) will be
hosting five workshops at the upcoming International Joint Conference
on Artificial Intelligence.  The Conference is being held from Aug
20-25th in Detroit, Michigan. The SIGMAN workshops are:

Aug 21 - Workshop 1:   Concurrent Engineering Design

Aug 22 - Workshop 2:   Manufacturing Planning

Aug 23 - Workshop 3:   Manufacturing Scheduling

Aug 24 - Workshop 4:   Integrated Architectures for Manufacturing

Aug 25 - Workshop 5:   Diagnostic Systems for Manufacturing             

The workshop proceedings will most probably be published in one volume
under the title "Proceedings of the AAAI Workshops on Manufacturing".


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WORKSHOP 1 - AUG 21

                         CONCURRENT ENGINEERING DESIGN

                           Call for Participation.

AIM:
The workshop addresses the issues related to concurrent design in
industrial environments. The workshop focus is to discuss in detail
the software issues related to design by a team of engineers, the
support environment provided to the individual designers and the
advances in design methodology in the mechanical and electrical
engineering domain.

WARNING:
This workshop is not to be confused with, the more theoretically
inclined, AAAI-Artificial Intelligence in Design Workshops which have
been held every other year since 1984. The next Design workshop will
be held at AAAI 1990.

TOPICS:
Authors are encouraged to submit abstracts for papers across a broad
spectrum of issues related, but not limited to:

   - Concurrent Design Methodology, Problems, Techniques.

   - System architectures for Concurrent Design. Coordination, Control and
     Communication issues. Design Databases.

   - Implementation  of  Design  for  the  abilities,  (Manufacturability,
     Testability, Reliability, etc.) AI techniques.

   - Knowledge/Data Representation, Feature  based  design,  Non-Geometric
     features, Design Databases, Standards.

   - Case studies in Concurrent Engineering.

FORMAT
The workshop will be on day long and will take place on Monday, August
21.  There will be four Panel Discussions, two in the morning and two
in the afternoon.  Each panel will begin with general remarks by the
panel moderator followed by short presentations by the panelists.
General discussion will follow.  Attendance will be limited to 70.

SUBMISSIONS
Please submit one page abstracts/position-papers no later than May 2,
1989. The focus of the submissions should be on the identification and
discussion of key issues concerning Concurrent Engineering Design, and
the role/solutions that AI techniques can provide, as well as the
current status of existing applications.

These submissions will be used to select workshop attendees.
Notifications will be mailed out by the end of June.

Please send submissions with 4 copies to:
Dr. V. Jagannathan
American Cimflex
121 Industry Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15275
U.S.A.
E-Mail: cimflex@dragon.cimds.cmu.edu
Phone: (412) 787 3001

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

V. Jagannathan, Co-Chair, American Cimflex
D. Navinchandra, Co-Chair, CMU

Nien-Hua Chao, AT&T Bell Labs
S. N. Dwivedi, West Virginia Univ.
David Gossard, MIT
Ted Kitzmiller, Boeing Adv. Tech. Center
Allen Matsumoto, American Cimflex
Sanjay Mittal, Xerox Palo Alto Research
Y.V. Ramana Reddy, W. Virginia Univ.
Marty Tenenbaum, Stanford.
Ralph Wood, GE-Corporate Research
Mike Wozny, Rensselaer Polytechnic
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WORKSHOP 2 - AUGUST 22

                            MANUFACTURING PLANNING

Call for Papers/Participation

This one-day workshop is to be held during the International Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Detroit this August.

DESCRIPTION:
The purpose of this workshop is to identify critical issues in
manufacturing planning, applicable AI technologies, and directions for
future research.

TOPICS:
The subject area, manufacturing planning, is interpreted here to
include all areas of manufacturing in which AI planning techniques
might be applicable.  For example, process planning would be such an
area.

One exception to the above is that this workshop will not deal with
production scheduling (which is to be handled in a separate workshop).

FORMAT:
The workshop will be divided into panels on various topics.  For each
topic, short presentations will be given by the panel members,
followed by extended discussions.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Dana Nau (Committee Chair)
University of Maryland
nau@mimsy.umd.edu

Steve Ray, NIST (formerly NBS)
Keith Hummel, Allied Signal Corp.
Stephen C. Y. Lu,   University of Illinois

SUBMISSIONS:

Those interested in participating should submit a one- or two-page
extended abstract, along with a list of related publications.  The
submission deadline will be April 21, and attendees will be notified
in mid June.  Submissions should be sent to:

Dana S. Nau
Computer Science Department
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
ATTN: SIGMAN PLANNING WORKSHOP

Attendees   will  be  selected  by  the  organizing  committee,  based  on  the
committee's evaluation of the submissions.
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WORKSHOP 3 - AUGUST 23

                           MANUFACTURING SCHEDULING

DESCRIPTION:
The purpose of this workshop is to identify the key issues in the
scheduling of production in manufacturing facilities, the applicable
AI techniques, the current status of existing applications, and the
directions for future research.

FORMAT:
There will be four 1.5 hour sessions (two morning sessions with a
break, followed by a lunch break (possibly working lunch), followed by
two afternoon sessions with a break) in the one day workshop.  Each
session will begin with a few overview remarks from one of the program
committee who has refereed the papers for that session and will act as
its chairman.  This will be followed by a brief position statement (5
minutes) by each of those (4 or 5) who have had papers accepted for
that session topic.  This will be followed by an open discussion.
Open discussion of the issues is intended to occupy the bulk of each
session, and will be mediated by the session chairman.

TOPICS:
The sessions will be organized in response to the interest of the
participants as reflected in papers submitted.  Suggested topics
include ...  predictive scheduling, reactive scheduling, interactive
scheduling, MRP- level/quarterly/monthly scheduling, weekly/daily
scheduling, hourly/real-time scheduling, schedule construction,
schedule repair, constraint-based scheduling, expert system
schedulers, fuzzy scheduling, genetic scheduling, simulated annealing
scheduling, ....

SUBMISSIONS
Three page single-spaced submissions must be received by 15 May 89.
Notification will not be later than 16 June 89, with final copy
submission by 17 July 89.  Proceedings will be available at IJCAI
prior to the start of the workshop.  Focus should be on the
identification and resolution of scheduling issues using AI
techniques, rather than broad surveys or implementation details
(unless implementation is the issue).  Preference will be given to
those who describe work which tests identifiable theory under
realistic conditions.

ATTENDANCE
Participation will be limited to 50 with roughly 20 having the
opportunity to formally present and everyone having a chance to
contribute (the discussion period allows for 240 minutes to be shared
among 50 participants).  Invitations will be primarily issued to those
who provide substantive submissions.  Remaining places will be filled
by those who respond by 15 May 89 with a one page resume (including
recent publications) which demonstrates the ability to contribute to
the discussion periods.  Domain experts are welcome to respond in this
fashion.  The committee will have the final choice concerning the
invitation of participants.

COMMITTEE
Karl Kempf (AAAI-SIGMAN Industrial Co-Chair) - Intel Corporation,
Stephen Smith - CMU,
Barry Fox - NASA, one other t.b.a.
CONTACT:
Karl Kempf
Intel Corporation / SC9-22
2250 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA, 95052

Phone  408-765-9322
FAX  408-765-9936
kkempf@td2cad.intel.com
kkempf@sc9.intel.com
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WORKSHOP 4 - AUGUST 24

                  INTEGRATED ARCHITECTURES FOR MANUFACTURING

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
The workshop on Integrated Architectures for Manufacturing aims at
bringing together participants from industry and academia interested
in finding ways in which Artificial Intelligence can be used to
effectively coordinate and integrate organizational decision making in
manufacturing.  To achieve such a level of integration it is necessary
to develop a manufacturing systems architecture that supports
appropriate representation and distribution of the manufacturing
knowledge, as well as protocols that enable cooperative decision
making.  This task represents an enormous challenge given the
complexity of manufacturing tasks, the need to integrate a huge array
of numerical, symbolic and pictorial data, the need to be able to
represent entities such as 3D geometries and abstract design features,
the need to define the proper interactions not only among the various
organizational functions, but also interactions (and reactions to)
with a dynamically changing competitive environment.

TOPICS:
The topics to be discussed will focus on the interests of the
participants as evidenced by their submissions. Some general topics
include:

   - What  does it mean to integrate activities both within production and
     across the manufacturing product life cycle?

   - What is an appropriate architecture that supports the above?

   - How can the achievement of global organizational goals  be  supported
     while  maintaining  autonomous  decision making in different parts of
     the organization?

   - What are the strategies to support negotiation to resolve conflicts?

FORMAT:
The workshop is 1-day long and will take place on Thursday, August 24.
There will be four sessions, two in the morning and two in the
afternoon. Each session will begin with general remarks by the session
chairperson followed by a presentation, 5 to 10 minutes, by the
selected participants. General discussion will follow.  Attendance
will be limited to 60.

Suggested panel topics are presented below.  The final selection of
panel topics, however, will be determined by the issues addressed in
the submissions.  Submissions targeted for a particular panel in the
present list should indicate so in the title page.

Integrated Manufacturing Architectures: What does it mean? Since this
is a rather recent topic that may mean different things to different
people, it is important to discuss possible definitions of the
concept, its essential characteristics, its function, its scope, the
key issues that need to be addressed, the role of AI techniques and
other related questions.

Are current manufacturing organizational structures obsolete?  In
current manufacturing organizations, materials and information are
passed serially from one department to the next and the hierarchical
mode of organization predominates.  Future enterprises will employ a
flexible informational infrastructure, where each function becomes a
knowledge center capable of teaming with other nodes and operating in
parallel in support of the enterprise business strategy.  Integration
requires more than just technology. Success demands the true
integration of "people and machines", where the quality of human
interaction becomes as important as product quality.  This will
necessitate not only the realignment of departmental charts, but also
reward systems, career paths and management style.

How should manufacturing knowledge be represented and distributed
throughout the organization? The applications of most large
manufacturing enterprises have their own dedicated databases.
Although there is redundant data in most of these data bases, it
cannot be automatically shared because the definition of the data
elements are slightly different, and moreover the semantics, even for
key concepts such as part, subassembly, tolerance, varies from
function to function.  These problems are circumvented today by the
human translation process and manual adaptation of the information
passed from one function to the next.  Hence, one of the important
issues is the development of reference models for the enterprise and
the incorporation of adequate translation strategies for communication
between functions.

What kinds of coordination patterns give rise to different production
strategies? New production strategies, such as Just in Time (JIT),
have recently been advocated and adopted by companies.  There is,
however, no general understanding of the coordination patterns
necessary for the successful employment of a strategy. For example,
some of the requirements for effective use of JIT are close working
arrangements with suppliers, and full quality assurance since poor
quality parts or materials result in severe manufacturing problems
and, in theory, JIT allows no time for checking incoming parts.  These
JIT requirements imply specific coordination patterns with material
suppliers.  Related questions are under what circumstances are
different production strategies appropriate, and whether there exist
Manufacturing Architectures that support the flexible adaptation of
different coordination patterns by the organization to produce
different production behaviors.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Katia Sycara (Chair), Carnegie Mellon
Dan Corkill, Univ. of Massachussetts
Les Gasser, Univ. of Southern California
Victor Lesser, Univ. of Massachussetts
Charles Marshall, Digital Equipment Corporation.
Richard Mayer, Texas A and M Univ.
Van Parunak, ITI Univ. of Michigan
Steve Smith, Carnegie Mellon
Marty Tenenbaum, Schlumberger and Stanford

SUBMISSIONS:
There will be two kinds of submissions:

   - Submission  of 6 copies of a 2-3 page single-spaced position paper no
     later  tha  May  2.  The  focus  of  the  submissions  should  be  on
     identification  and  discussion  of  key issues concerning Integrated
     Manufacturing  Architectures,  and   the   role/solutions   that   AI
     techniques  can  provide,  as  well as the current status of existing
     applications. These submissions  will  be  given  first  priority  in
     selecting presenters.

   - Submission  of  6 copies of a one-paragraph expression of interest in
     participation  that  demonstrates  the  ability  of   the   potential
     participant  to  contribute  to  the  discussions. Domain experts are
     encouraged to respond in this fashion.

All submissions will be reviewed by the program committee.  Presenters
and participants will be selected on the strength of their
submissions.  Participants will be notified my mid June . Final copy
submissions will be made by the end of June. Proceedings will be
available at the workshop.

Please mail papers to:
Katia P. Sycara
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA. 15213

Phone: (412) 268-8825
katia@isl1.ri.cmu.edu
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WORKSHOP 5 - AUGUST 25

                     DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS FOR MANUFACTURING

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
The purpose of this workshop is to assess status, technologies, and
future directions for the successful application of AI to diagnostic
problems in manufacturing.  The manufacturing focus is understood
broadly and covers the creation or use of diagnostic systems
throughout the product lifecyle - from design through production to
field service.

The workshop is structured around three panels: Innovative
Applications, Tools and Techniques, and Pragmatics (i.e.  Knowledge
Acquisition, Validation and Verification, User Interfaces, and System
Integration).  The panels will be followed by a discussion/debate on
the status of diagnostic technology (To what extent is it ready for
deployment?)  and future directions (What are the unresolved issues?).

PARTICIPATION:
Those interested are asked to send 1 page abstracts and a biographical
note to the to the workshop chair by April 21.  Abstracts should focus
on a core issue relevant to one of the panels.

Attendance will be limited to 75.  Panelists will be selected from
those submitting abstracts.  Notifications will be mailed by the end
of June.

WORKSHOP CHAIR:
Gary Kahn
Carnegie Group Inc.
5 PPG Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

SCHEDULE
08:30-9:00  Introductions
09:00-10:30 Panel: Innovative Applic.
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45-12:15 Panel: Tools and Techniques
12:15-01:45 Lunch Break
01:45-03:15 Panel: Pragmatics
03:30-05:00 Discussion: Ready for Prime Time, or Not?
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