This article describes Compaq QUICKSOURCE, an electronic problem-solving and information system for Compaq's line of networked printers. A major goal in designing this system was to empower Compaq's customers with expert system technology, allowing them to solve advanced network printer problems entirely on their own. In its first-generation system, SMART, the objective was to provide expert knowledge to Compaq's help-desk operation to better and more quickly answer customer calls and problems. Because the product would be used by a diverse and heterogeneous set of users, a significant amount of human factors research and analysis was performed as part of system design and implementation.

PROSE is a knowledge-based configurator platform for telecommunications products. Its outstanding feature is a product knowledge base written in C-classIC, a frame-based knowledge representation system in the KL-ONE family of languages. Unlike previous configurator applications, the PROSE knowledge base is in a purely declarative form that provides developers with the ability to add knowledge quickly and consistently. The PROSE architecture is general and is not tied to any specific telecommunications product.

This article describes the integration of a knowledge-based system with a large COBOL-DB2-based offender management system. The knowledge-based application, developed for the purpose of offender sentence calculation, is shown to provide several benefits, including a shortened development cycle, simplified maintenance, and improved accuracy over a previous COBOL-based application.

In 1991, Ford Motor Company began deployment of CAPE (computer-aided parts estimating system), a highly advanced knowledge-based system designed to generate, evaluate, and cost automotive part manufacturing plans. CAPE is a highly significant system for Ford of Europe in terms of the business needs it satisfies and the corporate acceptance of AI applications: First, CAPE represents a major investment, with significant person-years of effort spent on predeployment development alone. Second, CAPE is the first large-scale production expert system to be deployed within Ford of Europe. CAPE reduces estimating response time by 50 percent.

In 1991, Ford Motor Company began deployment of CAPE (computer-aided parts estimating system), a highly advanced knowledge-based system designed to generate, evaluate, and cost automotive part manufacturing plans. cape is engineered on an innovative, extensible, declarative process-planning and estimating knowledge representation language, which underpins the cape kernel architecture. Many manufacturing processes have been modeled to date, but eventually every significant process in motor vehicle construction will be included. Significant cost reductions are among the many benefits CAPE brings to Ford. CAPE is a highly significant system for Ford of Europe in terms of the business needs it satisfies and the corporate acceptance of AI applications: First, CAPE represents a major investment, with significant person-years of effort spent on predeployment development alone. Second, CAPE is the first large-scale production expert system to be deployed within Ford of Europe. Third, cost estimating is a critical business function. With a total annual materials budget of several billion dollars, cost control is at the heart of Ford's business. Fourth, reducing the lead time for new model programs provides a key competitive advantage. CAPE reduces estimating response time by 50 percent. Fifth, this system is enormously ambitious. The final system will capture the combined knowledge of estimating experts in all areas of automotive manufacture.

Parole board date order received three different parole dates. On the changes, probation judgments, and new laws earliest of these parole dates, he would be eligible and sentencing guidelines enacted each year for release from prison to serve the remainder by the state legislature also affect sentence calculations. of his sentence in the community. Finally, Because offenders are often sentenced because of overcrowding in the prison, Doe under multiple laws, these changes can received a safety valve date, which is a fraction create a complex equation for judges and of his time to serve until parole.

This article describes Compaq QUICKSOURCE, an electronic problem-solving and information system for Compaq's line of networked printers. A major goal in designing this system was to empower Compaq's customers with expert system technology, allowing them to solve advanced network printer problems entirely on their own. This process minimizes customer down time; reduces the number of telephone calls to the Compaq Customer-Support Center (resulting in monetary savings); improves customer satisfaction; and, perhaps most importantly, differentiates Compaq printers in the market-place by providing the best and most technologically advanced customer-support facility. This approach also represents a reengineering of Compaq's customer-support strategy and implementation. In its first-generation system, SMART, the objective was to provide expert knowledge to Compaq's help-desk operation to better and more quickly answer customer calls and problems. QUICKSOURCE is a second-generation system in that the customer-support function is put directly in the hands of the consumers (an example of knowledge publishing). As a result, its design presented a number of different and challenging issues. Because the product would be used by a diverse and heterogeneous set of users, a significant amount of human factors research and analysis was performed as part of system design and implementation. The analysis also dictated certain decisions about the organization and design of the expert system component. Since September 1992, Compaq has shipped more than 3000 copies of QUICKSOURCE.

PROSE is a knowledge-based configurator platform for telecommunications products. Its outstanding feature is a product knowledge base written in C-classIC, a frame-based knowledge representation system in the KL-ONE family of languages. It is one of the first successful products using a KL-ONE style language. Unlike previous configurator applications, the PROSE knowledge base is in a purely declarative form that provides developers with the ability to add knowledge quickly and consistently. The PROSE architecture is general and is not tied to any specific telecommunications product. As such, it is being reused to develop configurators for several different products. Finally, PROSE not only generates configurations from just a few high-level parameters, but it can also verify configurations produced manually by customers, engineers, or salespeople. The same product knowledge, encoded in C-classIC, supports both the generation and the verification of product configurations.

This workshop brought together 20 computer scientists, psychologists, and human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers to exchange results and views on human error and judgment bias. Human error is typically studied when operators undertake actions, but judgment bias is an issue in thinking rather than acting. Both topics are generally ignored by the HCI community, which is interested in designs that eliminate human error and bias tendencies. As a result, almost no one at the workshop had met before, and the discussion for most participants was novel and lively. Many areas of previously unexamined overlap were identified. An agenda of research needs was also developed.

AAAI News the edge of technology now, but we'll be at the point where we can Terry Weymouth of The University of Michigan was cochair and ringmaster for the performances. Grosz, Gordon conferences carried on with quiet the robots managed to perform this McKay Professor of Computer excitement in Washington in July, reasonably well. Science at Harvard, is the new President, AAAI's Autonomous Mobile Robot The third event proved the hardest, succeeding Patrick Hayes of the Competitions drew a stream of rousing and none of the robots completed the University of Illinois. The of MIT is President-Elect. The two events drew competitors robots were asked to select four "In the last several years," Grosz and spectators.