A leading South African diamond-mining consortium is deploying Artificial Intelligence based software tools for diagnosing the root cause of failures in diamond sorting machines used around the world. Using a technique called model based reasoning two software programs called ICAL and ICAT, enabled the diamond sorting machine maker to drive expert knowledge to field engineering staff in remote locations where the machines are used to solve and repair problems in the field.

According to a key project engineer, “Our decision to follow this route was based on the remote location of the equipment, limited skills levels in those areas and our push to increase maintainability of our products.” He added, “It is like having the design engineers and the field technicians side by side at all times through the troubleshooting procedure, fixing the fault, learning from failure and reporting back to the design engineers, all integrated within the workflow.”

The project saw its first light in 2000. The idea was to make the design engineers' knowledge of the diamond sorting machines available to field technicians at the mines. Using a different expert system, the company started phase 1 of the project. . According to one of the development engineers, “Gaps were discovered in phase 1 of the project which we could rectify with Automated Reasoning's ICAL program.”

ICAL Developer Software Interface

In 2003 ICAL and ICAT software was adopted for the second phase of development. The ICAL development software enabled the development team to construct a software model of the sorting machine, link subsystems and add technical documentation. He went on to say, “Using ICAL we were able to develop our own customised web front-end with the availability of an Automated Reasoning supplied API, then install the ICAT diagnostic program onboard the machine itself. Additionally, ICAL uses a model-based approach with the added benefit of using existing cases and rules, which allowed us to reduce modeling time in excess of 50%, so the cost of deployment is markedly reduced”



The final system monitors the machine's sub-systems in real time and takes action in the event of malfunctions. Information is gathered from the machines and from various test and measurement instruments to measure heat, vibration, voltage and pressure. All this event and alarm information is incorporated into the ICAL model for decision making and troubleshooting optimisation by the ICAT AI engine.

ICAT Runtime used by support personnel

In the event of a problem, ICAT can highlight the region of the fault rapidly and determine corrective action. The final system is web based, as are the diamond sorting machines, so this critical knowledge can be accessed and sent back to Engineering for reporting and learning purposes regardless of the location of the machines.

Also, because of its self-learning capability, the ICAT program can be used to improve its failure homing skills with experience. The cause of failure from each event can be learnt in order to update the models, and to optimize the operating efficiency of the ICAT program. The optimized runtime can then be redeployed over the intranet or Internet to distribute that knowledge back to the machines and the field engineers where it belongs. So, not only does the efficiency of fault finding increase, but the knowledge gained can be shared globally; with a keystroke.

Because ICAL and ICAT software are model based reasoning programs, they can be used for almost any equipment, system or process. So they are surprisingly adaptable to a wide variety of applications. The programs also support multiple deployment options to adapt to a broad range of end use requirements. For more information about ICAL and ICAT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Automated Reasoning announced the release of the latest versions of its mobile e-Diagnostic Solutions.

More and more of our customers are demanding flexible, mobile systems for simplicity of use and allowing them more freedom of movement. Automated Reasoning has come forward with a flexible, affordable solution.

Imagine your field and customer engineers being completely mobile with a maintenance and diagnostic solution on a Pocket PC running Windows CE, which includes full data transfer, diagnostics, e-mail and phone capabilities.

There are two basic solutions:

A Wireless networking solution allowing local mobility within a large site, and
a GSM solution allowing total mobility through GSM communications.

Automated Reasoning offers both standard and customized solutions using its leading diagnostic technologies and the possibility of full outsourcing on Automated Reasoning's ASP and Hosting services.

See Mobile Solutions for a demonstration.

 

 

Automated Reasoning is proud to announce the release of ICAL 5.0. ICAL is a unique model-based, central repository, concurrent engineering tool for the improvement of system uptime through continuous improvement of:

MTTR (Mean-Time-To-Repair) and
MTBF (Mean-Time-Between-Failures).

Closed Loop Support System

The approach used includes the DFS (Design for Supportability) and Closed Loop Support System principles. ICAL is the most complete tool of its kind available today. Based on the ICAT technology - which was originally developed by the US military during the mid 80s, when over 100 man-years went into the underlying algorithms and coding - ICAL has since been developed into a very user-friendly commercial product.

The most obvious visual change in the new version of ICAL is the tabs at the bottom of where the Graphic window used to be. The tabs provide a natural position for a graphic display for each of the functions in ICAL and makes it easy to go logically from one function to the next. Virtual links are now displayed in blue text in the Tree view, making them easy to identify quickly. When exporting and importing data, virtual links are also imported provided that they are within the part that is imported.

ICAL 5.0 has improved Rule, fault mode, precondition, and post condition handling. There are also new functionality regarding the outline tree handling which includes the following: When adding items the tree displays expanded nodes as currently selected. The option to expand or collapse the tree to selectable levels. The component is now highlighted in the tree as it is selected in the spare part/component list.

 

 

This page was last changed on July 08, 2004.

Copyright © 2004 by Automated Reasoning, Inc. All rights reserved. All information subject to change without notice. "ICAT", ICAL" and "Intelligent Computer-Aided Troubleshooting" are registered trademarks of Exsequor Limited. Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders. Persons shown in photographs are models and their photos are used for illustrative purposes only.

Please communicate any problems, questions, or suggestions that you may have about the software or this manual using the contact information below. For technical support, please contact Automated Reasoning at:

E-mail: ICAL@Automated-Reasoning.com

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