OPERA: A Highly Interactive Expert System for Outside Plant Engineering

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OPERA is an expert system developed at the Expert Systems Laboratory at NYNEX Science and Technology to assist outside plant telecommunications engineers in the planning and implementation of sophisticated electronic equipment. The engineer communicates with the system via intelligent documents that are schematic in their design and dynamic in their operation to facilitate the conveyance of necessary and sufficient information. Expertise from the top experts in the company was culled and built into the system to create an expert system that surpasses the engineering knowledge of any single engineer in the company. The domain and project objectives are discussed, the system architecture and development, testing, deployment and maintenance issues are presented and the use of artificial intelligence techniques is justified. A benefits analysis supports the positive contribution of the project.