SOFSEM 2001 28th Annual Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics November 24 - December 1, 2001 Piestany, Slovak Republic, Europe

Incremental Operator Assistance Knowledge System - an intelligent aid for a general class of problems

by Sandor Jenei

A new approach for knowledge representation and inference is introduced and discussed in this paper which is applicable for a wide range of daily problems - practically for all the problems, where some "strategy" for fault search and rectification is provided by an expert. The system is efficient even if this "strategy" - that is the general understanding of the actual problem - is weak. The theory finds its application in the ADAC project, corresponding to a problem raised by Circuit Foil, Luxembourg, a leader in the copper foil industry.

There is a real need in the operation and control of complex production systems for an on-line fault finding and correction procedure which also provides operators and management with an analysis of historical data to establish and maintain optimal routes to minimise interruptions to production. The IOAK System is such a procedure.

In this talk we describe a method of recording and analysing the incidence of control faults in manufacturing processes, and of recording the steps in rectifying such faults. Facilities are provided to evaluate a qualitative condence measure for correcting a given fault, with condence increasing if a recurring fault is correctly diagnosed and rectied. A history of control faults and their diagnosis and correction is built up, along with successful ways of dealing with individual faults being highlighted. In this way, the most rapid ("optimal") procedure for fault correction is indicated for the plant operator, allowing production to be re-installed with the least delay - a valuable facility for ensuring operators correct recurring faults in the same way, and useful in training operators.