Herve.Lambert@PS3.CS.CMU.EDU.UUCP (06/18/87)
I have to find some literature about actually operational expert systems in
process control. All I know is the example of PICON used at a Texaco's
refinery. Any informations, pointers very much aprreciated...
If I get interesting enough info, and if some people express the desire to
have the result of my query posted, I will do so...
Thanks in advance
- Herve
Net-address: herve@ps3.cs.cmu.edu
[How about this blurb from Business Week, "The 'Renaissance Man' of
Expert Systems?", Emily T. Smith, May 11, 1978, p. 141:
The trouble with using so-called expert system computer programs
in the factory is that very few manufacturing operations involve
only one realm of expertise. It's tough enough getting two experts
in the same field to agree, let alone a gaggle of experts from
different disciplines. So Major Stephen R. LeClair, head of
research in artificial intelligence for manufacturing at the
Materials Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, decided
it was time to devise a new type of expert system -- one that
could embrace multiple "domains" of expertise, automatically
resolve any conflicts, and "learn" from the process.
In its first real-world test, LeClair's multiexpert knowledge
system (MKS) recently turned in a stunning performance. It
discovered, on its own, that the accepted guidelines for curing
complex plastics composites are all wet. The aerospace industry
has been taking 12 hours to bake a 256-layer, graphite-reinforced
lamination used for airframe parts. By synthesizing the knowledge
from various fields, MKS came up with a complicated scheme for
curing the composite in less than three hours. No one believed
it could work, but it does. LeClair asserts that MKS may similarly
confound convential wisdom in other process-control applications.
The same page has another short report about a system that measures
rough gemstones (other than diamonds), plans the optimal cuts, and
cuts the stones. It reduces wasted stone by 10%, cost by 70%,
and makes marginal stones useable. -- KIL]