Reconstructive integrated explanation of lathe production plans

Abstract

A Reconstructive Explanation tool has been developed and implemented within an integrated knowledge acquisition framework. This tool (RIETO) employs both a formal and an informal knowledge base to construct explanations for individual lathe production plans. RIETO adopts a reconstructive explanation approach [WickThompson92] which does not rely on the problem solving trace constructed by the inference component of the system. Instead it reconstructs possible lines of reasoning which may provide justifications for those aspects of the solution which are questioned by the user. The explanation tool can thus bring to bear all pertinent information which was captured during knowledge acquisition, even if it was not used for actually solving the problem. RIETO can answer "why?" and "why not?" questions about different aspects of the production plan, can give justifications for rules and provide all information about a particular topic (e.g. the selection of cutting materials) which is pertinent to the context in which the question is asked by the user.