The data storage capacities of modern process automation systems have grown rapidly. Nowadays, the systems are able to frequently carry out even hundreds of measurements in parallel and store them in databases. However, these data are still rarely used in the analysis of processes. In this article, preparation of the raw data for further analysis is considered using feature extraction from signals by piecewise linear modeling. Prior to modeling, a preprocessing phase that removes some artifacts from the data is suggested. Because optimal models are computationally infeasible, fast heuristic algorithms must be utilized. Outlines for the optimal and some fast heuristic algorithms with modifications required by the preprocessing are given. In order to illustrate utilization of the features, a process diagnostics framework is presented. Among a large number of signals, the procedure finds the ones that best explain the observed short-term fluctuations in one signal. In the experiments, the piecewise linear modeling algorithms are compared using a massive data set from an operational paper machine. The use of piecewise linear representations in the analysis of changes in one real process measurement signal is demonstrated.

The configuration task is commonly defined as composing a complex product from a set of predefined component types while taking into account a set of well-defined restrictions on how components belonging to these types can be combined. Configuration, always a successful artificial intelligence (AI) application area ever since the R1/XCON system of the early 1980s, has recently attracted renewed research interest. This is also demonstrated by an annual series of workshops on configuration that have been held at the AAAI, ECAI, and IJCAI conferences since 1999. Important real-world industrial configuration tasks are encountered in marketing, manufacturing, and design. They usually involve physical products, such as telecommunication switches, computers, elevators, large diesel engines, automation systems, or vehicles (some of which appear as application domains in the articles in this issue), but can also pertain to financial or other services or software.

This Special Issue was motivated in part by the success of the 2001 American Association for Artificial Intelligence's Special Interest Group on Manufacturing (SIGMAN) workshop. SIGMAN has organized a series of these workshops that highlight significant advances in academic research and industrial practice. New manufacturing concepts such as agile/lean manufacturing and virtual manufacturing place increasing emphasis on the need for more intelligent manufacturing systems. It is no longer a question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will have an impact on manufacturing but one of better understanding and exploiting the broad potential of AI in this domain.

An evolutionary model for nonroutine design is presented, which is called hierarchical coevolution. The requirements for an evolutionary model of nonroutine design are provided, and some of the problems with existing approaches are discussed. Some of the ways in which these problems have been addressed are examined in terms of the design knowledge required by evolutionary processes. Then, a synthesis of these approaches as a hierarchical coevolutionary model of nonroutine design is presented and the manner in which this model addresses the requirements of an evolutionary design model is discussed. An implementation in the domain of space planning provides an example of a hierarchical design problem.

Constraint-based reasoning is often used to represent and find solutions to configuration problems. In the field of constraint satisfaction, the major focus has been on finding solutions to difficult problems. However, many real-life configuration problems, although not extremely complicated, have a huge number of solutions, few of which are acceptable from a practical standpoint. In this paper we present a value ordering heuristic for constraint solving that attempts to guide search toward solutions that are acceptable. More specifically, by considering weights that are assigned to values and sets of values, the heuristic can guide search toward solutions for which the total weight is within an acceptable interval. Experiments with random constraint satisfaction problems demonstrate that, when a problem has numerous solutions, the heuristic makes search extremely efficient even when there are relatively few solutions that fall within the interval of acceptable weights. In these cases, an algorithm that is very effective for finding a feasible solution to a given constraint satisfaction problem (the “maintained arc consistency” algorithm or MAC) does not find a solution in the same weight interval within a reasonable time when it is run without the heuristic.

Within the engineering design community there is support for further research into the development of improved approaches to design management. Such research has lead to coordination being identified as an important and pervasive characteristic of many existing approaches (e.g., concurrent engineering and work-flow management). In this article, operational design coordination is proposed as the basis for an improved approach. This article also presents a novel integrated approach that incorporates the key elements of operational design coordination: coherence, communication, task management, resource management, schedule management, and real-time support. Through unifying these key elements, this approach provides an integrated means of managing design in a controlled and harmonious fashion. The approach also provides knowledge of the constituent techniques involved in operational design coordination, the interrelationships and dynamic interactions between them, and the knowledge used and maintained within and between them. The approach has been realized within an agent-oriented system called the Design Coordination System, which provides a systematic means of simultaneously coordinating operational management tasks and technical design tasks. To evaluate the approach, the system has been applied to an industrial case study involving the computational process of turbine blade design. This application has been shown to enable the structured undertaking of interrelated tasks by allocating and using resources of varying performance efficiency in an optimized fashion in accordance with dynamically derived schedules in a coherent, appropriate, and timely manner. This is achieved by managing tasks, their dependencies, and the information required to undertake them. In addition, the approach enables and sustains the continuous optimized use of resources by monitoring, forecasting, and disseminating resource performance efficiency. The approach facilitates dynamic scheduling and the subsequent enactment of the resulting schedules. Decision making for rescheduling is also incorporated within the approach such that it is only performed as and when appropriate. If rescheduling is performed, it is done so in parallel with task enactment such that resources continue to be utilized in an optimized manner.

In this paper we are interested in the decision problem faced by an agent when requesting bids for collections of tasks with complex time constraints and interdependencies. In particular, we study the problem of specifying an appropriate schedule for the tasks in the request for bids. We expect bids to require resource commitments, so we expect different settings of time windows to solicit different bids and different costs. The agent is interested in soliciting “desirable” bids, where desirable means bids that can be feasibly combined in a low-cost combination that covers the entire collection of tasks. Since the request for bids has to be issued before the agent can see any bids, in this decision process there is a probability of loss as well as a probability of gain. This requires the decision process to deal with the risk posture of the person or organization on whose behalf the agent is acting. We describe a model based on Expected Utility Theory and show how an agent can attempt to maximize its profits while managing its financial risk exposure. We illustrate the operation and properties of the model and discuss what assumptions are required for its successful integration in multiagent contracting applications.

In the construction industry, projects are becoming increasingly large and complex, necessitating multiple subcontractors. Traditional centralized coordination techniques used by general contractors become insufficient as subcontractors perform most work and provide their own resources. When subcontractors cannot provide enough resources, they hinder their own performance, that of other subcontractors, and ultimately the entire project. Thus, projects need a new distributed coordination approach wherein all of the concerned subcontractors can respond to changes and reschedule a project dynamically. This paper presents a new distributed coordination framework for project schedule changes (DCPSC) that is based on an agent-based negotiation approach wherein software agents evaluate the impact of changes, simulate decisions, and give advice on behalf of the human subcontractors. A case example demonstrates the significance of the DCPSC. It compares two centralized coordination methodologies used in current practice to the DCPSC framework. We demonstrate that our DCPSC framework always finds a solution that is better than or equal to any of two centralized coordination methodologies.

Construction cost estimators are confronted with the challenging task of estimating the cost of constructing one of a kind facilities. They must first recognize the design conditions of the facility design that are important (i.e., incur a cost) and then determine how the design conditions affect the cost of construction. Current product models of facility designs explicitly represent components, attributes of components, and relationships between components. These designer-focused product models do not represent many of the cost-driving features of building product models, such as penetrations and component similarity. Previous research efforts identify many of the different features that affect construction costs, but they do not provide a formal and general way for practitioners to represent the features they care about according to their preferences. This paper presents the formal ontology we developed to represent construction knowledge about the cost-driving features of building product models. The ontology formalizes three classes of features, defines the attributes and functions of each feature type, and represents the relationships between the features explicitly. The descriptive semantics of the model allow estimators to represent their varied preferences for naming features, specifying features that result from component intersections and the similarity of components, and grouping features that affect a specific construction domain. A software prototype that implements the ontology enables estimators to transform designer-focused product models into estimator-focused, feature-based product models. Our tests show that estimators are able to generate and maintain cost estimates more accurately, consistently, and expeditiously with feature-based product models than with industry standard product models.

Genetic algorithm (GA) and singular value decomposition (SVD) are deployed for the optimal design of both Gaussian membership functions of antecedents and the vector of linear coefficients of consequents, respectively, of adaptive neurofuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) networks that are used for modeling of the explosive cutting process of plates by shaped charges. The aim of such modeling is to show how the depth of penetration varies with the variation of important parameters, namely, the apex angle, standoff, liner thickness, and mass of charge. It is demonstrated that SVD can be effectively used to optimally find the vector of linear coefficients of conclusion parts in ANFIS models and their Gaussian membership functions in premise parts are determined by a GA.

Configuration problems often involve large product catalogs, and the given user requests can be met by many different kinds of parts from this catalog. Hence, configuration problems are often weakly constrained and have many solutions. However, many of those solutions may be discarded by the user as long as more interesting solutions are possible. The user often prefers certain choices to others (e.g., a red color for a car to a blue color) or prefers solutions that minimize or maximize certain criteria such as price and quality. In order to provide satisfactory solutions, a configurator needs to address user preferences and user wishes. Another important problem is to provide high-level features to control different reasoning tasks such as solution search, explanation, consistency checking, and reconfiguration. We address those problems by introducing a preference programming system that provides a new paradigm for expressing user preferences and user wishes and provides search strategies in a declarative and unified way, such that they can be embedded in a constraint and rule language. The preference programming approach is completely open and dynamic. In fact, preferences can be assembled from different sources such as business rules, databases, annotations of the object model, or user input. An advanced topic is to elicit preferences from user interactions, especially from explanations of why a user rejects proposed choices. Our preference programming system has successfully been used in different configuration domains such as loan configuration, service configuration, and other problems.

The design of sheet metal components is perhaps one of the more challenging concurrent activities for design and manufacturing engineers. To aid this design process, a method is developed to encapsulate the constraints of sheet metal that make designing such components a tedious and iterative procedure. This project involves the implementation and testing of a geometric representation scheme for building feasible sheet metal components through the use of 17 grammar rules that capture manufacturing operations like cutting and bending. The implemented system has benefits both as a user interaction tool and as the basis for a computational design synthesis approach for designing sheet metal components. An example of a constructed sheet metal component is shown along with the method for invoking the sheet metal grammar to create this component.

Four bar mechanisms are basic components of many important mechanical devices. The kinematic synthesis of four bar mechanisms is a difficult design problem. A novel method that combines the genetic programming and decision tree learning methods is presented. We give a structural description for the class of mechanisms that produce desired coupler curves. Constructive induction is used to find and characterize feasible regions of the design space. Decision trees constitute the learning engine, and the new features are created by genetic programming.

Selective disassembly is an important issue in industrial and mechanical engineering for environmentally conscious manufacturing. This paper presents an intelligent selective disassembly approach based on ant colony algorithms, which take inspiration from the behavior of real ant colonies and are used to solve combinatorial optimization problems. For diverse assemblies, the algorithm generates different amounts of ants cooperating to find disassembly sequences for selected components, minimizing the reorientation of assemblies and removal of components. A candidate list that is composed of feasible disassembly operations, which are derived from a disassembly matrix of products, guides sequence construction in the implicit solution space and ensures the geometric feasibility of sequences. Preliminary implementation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Today's economy exhibits a growing trend toward highly specialized solution providers cooperatively offering configurable products and services to their customers. This paradigm shift requires the extension of current standalone configuration technology with capabilities of knowledge sharing and distributed problem solving. In this context a standardized configuration knowledge representation language with formal semantics is needed in order to support knowledge interchange between different configuration environments. Languages such as Ontology Inference Layer (OIL) and DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML+OIL) are based on such formal semantics (description logic) and are very popular for knowledge representation in the Semantic Web. In this paper we analyze the applicability of those languages with respect to configuration knowledge representation and discuss additional demands on expressivity. For joint configuration problem solving it is necessary to agree on a common problem definition. Therefore, we give a description logic based definition of a configuration problem and show its equivalence with existing consistency-based definitions, thus joining the two major streams in knowledge-based configuration (description logics and predicate logic/constraint based configuration).

This paper presents an approach to the automatic generation of electromechanical engineering designs. We apply messy genetic algorithm (GA) optimization techniques to the evolution of assemblies composed of LegoTM structures. Each design is represented as a labeled assembly graph and is evaluated based on a set of behavior and structural equations. The initial populations are generated at random, and design candidates for subsequent generations are produced by user-specified selection techniques. Crossovers are applied by using cut and splice operators at the random points of the chromosomes; random mutations are applied to modify the graph with a certain low probability. This cycle continues until a suitable design is found. The research contributions in this work include the development of a new GA encoding scheme for mechanical assemblies (Legos), as well as the creation of selection criteria for this domain. Our eventual goal is to introduce a simulation of electromechanical devices into our evaluation functions. We believe that this research creates a foundation for future work and it will apply GA techniques to the evolution of more complex and realistic electromechanical structures.

The paper introduces and discusses the notion of decomposition of a configuration problem within the framework of a structured logical approach. The paper describes under which conditions a given configuration problem can be decomposed into a set of noninteracting subproblems and how to exploit such a decomposition, both for improving the performance of the configurator and for supporting interactive configuration. Different kinds of decomposition are considered, but all of them exploit, as much as possible, the explicit representation of the partonomic relations in the language, a KL-One like representation formalism augmented with constraints for expressing complex interrole relations. The paper introduces a notion of boundness among constraints, which is used for formally specifying different types of decomposition. One decomposition strategy aims at singling out the components and subcomponents that are directly related to the constraints put by the user's requirements; the configurator exploits such decomposition by first configuring that portion of the product and then configuring the parts that are not related to the user's requirements. Another decomposition strategy verifies whether the set of constraints for the product to be configured can be split into a set of noninteracting problems. In such a case the configurator solves the configuration problem by splitting the whole search space into a set of smaller search spaces. Different combinations of these two decomposition techniques are considered, and the impact of the decomposition strategies on the performance of the configurator is evaluated via a set of experiments using the configuration of computer systems as a test bed. The results of the experiments show a significant reduction of the computational effort (both in terms of number of backtrackings and in CPU time) when decomposition strategies are used.

We present a methodology of learning fuzzy rules using an iterative genetic algorithm (GA). The approach incorporates a scheme of partitioning the entire solution space into individual subspaces. It then employs a mechanism to progressively relax or tighten the constraint. The relaxation or tightening of constraint guides the GA to the subspace for further iteration. The system referred to as the iterative GA learning module is useful for learning an efficient fuzzy control algorithm based on a predefined linguistic terms set. The overall approach was applied to learn a fuzzy algorithm for a water bath temperature control. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in automating an industrial process.

This paper presents a novel approach, which is based on integrated (automatic/interactive) knowledge acquisition, to rapidly develop knowledge-based systems. Linguistic rules compatible with heuristic expert knowledge are used to construct the knowledge base. A fuzzy inference mechanism is used to query the knowledge base for problem solving. Compared with the traditional interview-based knowledge acquisition, our approach is more flexible and requires a shorter development cycle. The traditional approach requires several rounds of interviews (both structured and unstructured). However, our method involves an optional initial interview, followed by data collection, automatic rule generation, and an optional final interview/rule verification process. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through a benchmark case study and a real-life manufacturing application.

The exponential growth of the Internet and increasing communication and computational power have created many opportunities for advancing engineering, manufacturing, and business activities. Among them are electronic catalogs. These have become basic information resources to a number of people, ranging from shoppers looking for personal items to engineers selecting electromechanical parts to build a product. Although rich in content, current catalog systems are limited both in search quality and in realizing the full potential of the retrieved information. The active catalog system brings a conceptually new idea to electronic commerce by providing a new, computationally usable, catalog information environment about components and their use in applications. It utilizes a rich body of domain knowledge to facilitate access and retrieval of component information. The utility of retrieved information is enhanced by using it to rapidly construct simulation programs and test alternatives, supporting a “try before you buy” paradigm in which users evaluate candidate components within simulations of their design. We describe services provided in the active catalog system to support engineers in selecting and evaluating electromechanical components and subsystems. The services include mechanisms for creating queries for parts based on their intended use rather than merely parametric specifications, refining those queries to take account of constraints imposed by domain knowledge, providing multimodal information to help engineers assess and compare candidate parts, and generating simulation models for candidate parts and integrating them to provide simulation models for candidate systems.