Reference: Darr, T.; Fox, M.; & McGuinness, D.L. Special Configuration Issue of the Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing Journal. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering, Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing Journal, 1998.
Abstract: Representing objects and their interactions can be quite challenging when an application requires many complicated, interconnected objects that are restricted in how they can be instantiated. In this paper, we present our approach to conceptual modeling. We have used this approach with success in a number of applications, the largest of which is the PROSE family of configurators. PROSE was first deployed in 1990 and has been used to configure over 4 billion dollars worth of AT&T and Lucent telecommunications equipment. We will discuss our approach to conceptual modeling, which is based on knowledge representation, show how it meets our representation and reasoning needs, and then discuss the relative merits of the approach.