One of the topics at the 2006 Spring Symposium of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence was Distributed Plan and Schedule Management.  Debra Walker, CEO of Apprentice Systems, was selected as a moderator for this session based on a position paper titled "The Role of Deliverable Specification on Automated Process Planning".  This paper discusses the value of dovetailing product configuration and process configuration, especially in the new product development process.  A detailed product specification, generated by a tool like the Product Apprentice, can become a critical input to the design of the process that will deliver that product.  In this way, the output of the Product Apprentice becomes an input to the Project Apprentice, leveraging both technologies for state-of-the-art automation in the process planning arena.

Download a copy of the Position Paper...