Manufacturing work at AIAI

[A page from 1997]

AIAI has made significant contributions to the application of artificial intelligence in the manufacturing industry.

Some applications are:

• EASE for Windows, a knowledge-based system for assessing workplace exposure to potentially hazardous substances. EU directives and regulations require manufacturers and suppliers of both new and existing substances to notify the appropriate authority, who will carry out a risk assessment of it. To aid this process, guidance is provided by the regulator for use by both safety authorities and manufacturers. Safety-related considerations and a desire for quality led to the system being developed in accordance with ISO9001 standards. The system has been widely distributed for use by authorities throughout Europe.
  Built for the Health and Safety Executive

• Formation - a knowledge-based layout system for classified telephone directories and catalogues, which will be in full production use for BT's Yellow Page directories from September 1996. It provides a graphical user interface to a powerful and efficient batch layout engine (typically 1500-2000 pages per hour) along with style definition facilities including a library of layout strategies and methods. Styles are written in the special purpose Layout Style Specification Language (LSSL), which has been developed at AIAI for use in knowledge-based layout systems. Formation itself is implemented in Common Lisp and runs on PCs. The core layout engine also runs on Unix workstations.
  Built for Pindar Set Ltd

• TOSCA - The Opportunistic Job-Shop Scheduling System addresses the factory scheduling problem from a constraint-based perspective. A pre-schedule analysis provides an understanding of the scheduling constraints, while a high-level schedule allocates factory operations to a single resource and a restricted time period but leaving responsibility under human control. Finally a detailed schedule allocates factory operations to a single resource and a specific start time.
  Built for Hitachi Ltd