| authors |
Rasdorf, William J. and Watson, Bruce R. |
| year |
1986 |
| title |
ADI : An Adaptive Database Interface for Dynamic Databases |
| source |
ASME Symposium Proceedings on Knowledge based Expert Systems for Manufacturing. Anaheim, CA: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Production Engineering Division, December, 1986. pp. 119-130. CADLINE has abstract only |
| summary |
The operation of a manufacturing organization often depends on its underlying design and manufacturing databases. In a manufacturing environment, many users, both individuals and application programs, must have access to one or more of the organization's databases to provide, use, or modify data, to control information flow, and to facilitate information management. Such databases routinely undergo dynamic changes in both their content and their structure. These changes commonly result from the design of new products, the introduction of new materials, and the introduction of new machines and processes on the shop floor. Such continuing changes must be reflected in the database schemas and subsequently require that application programs be updated and that online users be educated on a continuous basis. The problem addressed in this paper is that it is difficult for users and application programs to get the information that they need, when they need it, from the multiple heterogeneous database management system (DBMS) environments that have evolved in design and manufacturing organizations. The solution proposed here is to build a general, extendable interface between database users and the many sources of data available to them. This in itself is not a new suggestion; a number of researchers have addressed portions of this problem. In general, the interfaces that they have developed to date are best suited to environments where the structure of the database is static and does not change over time. One of the things that this paper proposes that is different from existing work is an interface which handles the dynamic restructuring nature of manufacturing databases, enabling a user to obtain the most accurate and up to date information as the structure and content of the underlying databases change. Another unique aspect of the DBMS interface proposed herein is that the interface attempts to capture the knowledge that an experienced human user incorporates in his search for data in a database, i.e., it seeks to identify and use the generic knowledge needed to operate a DBMS. This knowledge is used by the interface to enable both the online users and the application programs to request data without knowing the data's location or precisely how to ask for it. Further, the interface makes use of mechanisms that allow the user to request data without knowing the exact identity of the required entities that are stored in the database |
| keywords |
engineering, database, manufacturing, user interface |
| series |
CADline |
| references |
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| last changed |
2003/06/02 10:24 |
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