This section will show how AI has been incorporated into everyday use in Business and Industry. It will hopefully promote further use of AI within industry by showing the benefits of existing systems and technologies.
Industrial Gas turbines are used extensively in the power generation industry. The power plants using this technology can be built relatively cheaply and quickly, and when all goes well they can run continuously for long periods of time with very little attention from operators. In the increasingly competitive energy generation market, profit margins are very tight and "down time" on the turbines can be very costly. In addition many sites use the minimum of manning levels. The major trend is to run the turbines unattended with only remote support. In order to make a good profit margin for power generation companies, it is essential that the turbine has a high availability, minimum unexpected maintenance costs and can be run by someone with relatively little training.
The TIGER system is in continuous use on over 20 gas turbines across four continents performing fault diagnosis. TIGER receives several hundred data inputs per second and performs several layers of fault detection and diagnosis using expert system techniques in a temporal reasoning rule base.
Development of the system has now extended to nearly eight years. The diagnostics are supported by an extensive user interface, data archive, trending and display system. Across its deployment, TIGER has helped to identify and diagnose over 700 incidents representing 200 different fault categories. TIGERS benefit is estimated to be in the region of $150,000 or more for most of the locations it has been installed at.
The application was originally developed by Intelligent Applications Ltd of Livingston, West Lothian Scotland but is currently being installed and maintained by Sermatech.
For more information, case studies and applications of TIGER see the Intelligent Applications Ltd site.
XpertRule comes in two packages:
The Knowledge Builder allows the user to build up "decision trees" of practical applications and incorporate rules and trees within these systems. The product has been used worldwide including Singapore, where it is used in a semiconductor manufacturing plant to improve knowledge sharing in maintenance efficiency and at NASA where it was used to help build a Contamination Control Engineering Design Guidelines Expert System.
The data mining tool application has been used extensively in the area of finance, especially in the areas of fraud detection and prediction of markets from past performances.
To look more closely at the systems (including downloadable working demos) and see in depth reports on the areas in which the software has been used, see the Attar web site.
The increased use of speed cameras on British roads has recently been the subject of a large amount of news interest. This coverage concentrates mainly on the reactions of road users and the opinions of the police but often neglects to mention the AI that the technology relies upon.
The software for these systems is developed by an Israeli software development company and comprises of a set of vision-based licence plate recognition systems that detect and read vehicle license plates. Cameras take a picture of either the front or back of the car using illumination (usually infra-red) and the software processes the picture to determine a vehicle identity number. The software can be used to work alongside other systems (such as the speed monitoring one) to provide an almost instant recognition of the vehicle being used.
The Hi-Tech Solutions Ltd web site gives visitors the opportunity to download a demo version of the software which scans different example photos of cars and identifies the number plate. The British version of the software worked well when it was tested in the AKRI office. Digital images of cars on the car park were taken, converted into the same format that the software uses and then fed into the program.The software identified the number plates of all but one of the images. The exception image was admittedly slightly lopsided and fuzzy with camera shake but as the software is intended for use with images from a static mounted camera this can be forgiven.
For more information on the software and its uses as well as an opportunity to use it see the Hi-Tech Solutions Ltd site.
One area where AI applications are being used more is the medical profession. Decision support tools are there to give guidance to GPs about areas which they might not be experts but have a "working knowledge" of the problem. Isabel "is a sophisticated paediatric clinical decision-making support system designed as a near-patient working tool for doctors, nurses and health care workers. " Although the current version concentrates on paediatric conditions, an adult version is planned. At present, the system is aimed at UK-based health professionals.
It contains a set of clinical algorithms (flowcharts) for a wide range of medical conditions and also has a large database of different previous cases that experts have come across. The software can also back up these decisions by having access to a large image library of x-rays, scans and images of key paediatric conditions which, the user can compare with the patient they are treating.
This web service is provided by a charity and you can find out more about why and how it was set up as well as seeing a downloadable presentation on it by visiting the site. The actual use of the diagnostic support system is restricted to medical users only because the terminology is not something that is understandable by the layman. You can however get a feel for the system by navigating around the parts of the site that are unrestricted see the Isabel Medical charity UK site.
Clementine is a data mining workbench that enables you to quickly develop predictive models using business expertise and deploy them to improve decision making. The application has a proven track record in decison making process for business and industry. Initially developed by Alaln Montgomerys Integral Solutions Limited (ISL) the success of the application so it being bought out by SPSS.
This has led to Clementine being used in many areas, from how data mning has been used to detect fraud to, analysis of customers at risk from being lured away by competitors in the telecommunications industry. In one case and American Bank increased sales in one area by 50% as well as reducing marketing in the same area by 20%. This was achieved with more suitable targeting of customers by data mining the existing information on customers they had.
For more comprehensive information on the applicaion look at the SPSS site. They also have other AI related products which may be of interest.
The BrainMaker application is a platform for developing Neural network applications. The makers claim you do not need any special computing skills to operate the software. All you need is a PC or Mac and your own sample data to begin to develop your own neural network. They claim with over 25,000 systems sold it is the best selling neural network software in the world, and they even provide a 30 -day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with it.
The numerous case studies range from several busines sectors. From predicting stock markets to the non-destructive testing of concrete, where the test data is used to predict the likelyhood of a fault occuring and at what depth it would occur.
As well as the product information and case studies, there was also a lot of information on the whole area of Neural networks. I found that this could be very useful as background information on the area to explain to people what they do. I would have liked to download an example of the product to try but this facility is not available. For more information on the product and a full list of case studies see their homepage.
The Kaidara Advisor software is a platform which allows the building of customer support solutions. Customer support / helplines / advice lines are becoming more a part of everyday life, and making sure that the right expertise and advice is given to the customer is very important. The software allows the user to build up the system on past cases and experiences, allowing it to be shared by customers who can access it in several ways.
Using a Cased Based Reasoning package like this means that the experience of the whole organization can be put to work solving customer problems. Successful resolution of past problems can be efficiently reused. Language and geographic differences are no longer barriers to sharing experience to solve customer issues. For more information on this software look at their homepage .
The Intellix Knowledge Server provides business with a tool for deployment of decision support using advanced knowledge solutions. These solutions are built with the Intellix Designer and are based on Intellix patented neural network technology. The usage of Intellix Knowledge Server in companion with the Intellix Designer enables enterprises to capture and share knowledge on a company wide basis. By deploying knowledge about best practices held by experts organisations can support or even automate core business processes. The main benifit of this is to free up the expert, the solutions can be easily reached via the web or through a phone call, talking to the software operative instead of the expert. The advice given would be the same as if the expert was on the othere end of the line.
You can try out a demo version of the intellix software products by downloading them from their website (warning here: they are quite big files so I would advise not to do this over a modem).