Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

84.0. "SEC final evaluation of internal tools" by BONNET::COUTIER () Tue Feb 28 1989 10:28

    Some of you may know that a committee called the Software Evaluation
    Committee (SEC), composed of AITC people from various functions,
    and chaired by Tim Yeaton, AI Engineering product management, has
    evaluated 7 different internal tools.
    
    These tools were:
    
    		VAX Decision Expert
    		Foxglove
    		AISE (previously EASE)
    		BURN
    		Expert Toolkit
    		G-Kaps
    		UDS
    
    A thorough technical evaluation, followed by a business eveluation,
    lead to the following recommendations:
    
    		1. Foxglove (a forward-chaining rule-based extension
    of VAX LISP) should be made more widely available through
    the unsupported examples directory in VAX LISP. It can be used
    in consulting projects external to Digital. This is the highest
    non-product recommendation that the SEC can give to a tool.
                   
    		2. AISE (a Prolog-based tool for building advisory 
    applications) will be placed in the European ASSETS library
    in Valbonne and business activity will be monitored for evaluation
    of leveraged Prolog sales.
    
    		3. BURN (a knowledge engineering tool for building 
    case-based applications ) needs to be further developed and re-evaluated
    to see if it meets the criteria for becoming a productivity shell.
                 
    		4. Expert Toolkit (an expert system tool capturing 
    knowledge in the form of decision trees) is a subset of VAX Decision
    Expert and should only be used for specific internal applications.
    
    		5. G-Kaps (a tool for diagnostics applications with
    emphasis put on the causal relationships between events) will be
    placed in the US Assets library and be used when uncertainty is
    necessary and when knowledge bases are incomplete.
    
    In conclusion, Foxglove came out "the winner", followed by AISE
    and G-Kaps.
    
    Pascal
    
    		6. UDS (an expert system tool for diagnostic applications)
    will serve partly to design VAX Decision Expert version 2.0.