An Engineering Approach for Troubleshooting Case Bases

James R. Trott, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group,jtrott@atc.boeing.com
Dr. Bing Leng, Inference Corporation, bing.leng@inference.com

Abstract
Troubleshooting is a common application of case base technology. Often in these cases, the
goal is to capture the approaches of troubleshooting experts and put these troubleshooting best
practices in the hands of lesser experienced analysts. Effective knowledge capture is the
primary bottleneck to creating a good troubleshooting case base. We used the KADS
knowledge modeling methodology to guide the knowledge acquisition to create such a case
base. KADS helped us to validate the logic of the entire case base before writing one case and
to implement it more quickly than normal and with no errors. This paper illustrates our
experience in the use of KADS to help build case bases effectively.

7.	References
	Gardner97 Building Cognitive Frameworks for Object-Oriented Systems. Gardner, Rush,
et.al, SIGS Books, Inc., New York, NY, 1997.
	Gardner96 A Cognitive Basis for Object-Oriented Analysis. Proceedings of Object World
96.
	Mager82 Troubleshooting the Troubleshooting Course. Robert F. Mager. Lake Publishing
Co:Belmont, CA, 1982. ISBN 0-8224-9370-5
	Rothkopf96 Models as Aids to Thought. Michael H. Rothkop. In Interfaces, Volume 26,
Number 6. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
	Scott9l A Practical Guide to Knowledge Acquisition. Scott, Clayton, and Gibson.
Addison-Wesley, 1991. ISBN 0-201-14597-9
	Trott95 Knowledge Modeling to Capture, Analyze, and Transfer Expert Thinking. Trott,
Norwood, & Murphy. Proceedings of the 1995 Best Practices in Training, American
Society for Training and Development.
	Tansley93 Knowledge-Based Systems Analysis and Design: A KADS Developers
Handbook Tansley & Hayball. rentice Hall, 1993. SBN 0-13-515479-0
