ECAI 2006 Workshop on Configuration

Topics

The workshop wishes to promote high-quality research in all technical areas related to configuration and to bring together researchers and practitioners from industry and academia. The workshop thus is of interest for both researchers working in the various fields of applicable AI technologies as well as for industry representatives interested in the relationship between configuration technology and the business problem behind configuration and mass customization.

We invite submissions describing novel and previously unpublished research (possibly in progress) or experiences with AI in configuration-related areas, including but not limited to:

1. Configuration problems and models

   Configuration problems typology. Knowledge representation & acquisition. Fuzzy and incomplete knowledge. Knowledge base validation, diagnosis. Standardization of catalog exchange formats. Configuration problems including discrete/continuous/mixed constraints. Product and process configuration. Service configuration (travel, financial services, ...). Product design and configuration.

2. Reasoning methods

   Constraint Satisfaction Problems and extensions. Preference based reasoning. Description logics, Rules, Case-based reasoning. SAT-Solving, Local search, Genetic algorithms, Neural networks. Problem decomposition. Optimization. Multi-criteria optimization. Symmetry breaking. Cooperative configuration processes. Re-configuration of existing systems. Explanations. Distributed Problem Solving. Benchmark proposals. (Knowledge-based) recommendation.

3. Interactivity & e-business

   Personalization. Ontology. Intelligent man machine interaction. Machine learning. Client/Server architecture. Configuration server. Configuration Web service. Distributed configuration. Configuration Process modelling.

4. Integration into the business process

   Product Data Management. CAD. Pricer. ERP. Product Configuration and CRM Interfaces. Interaction with Product Data Management systems. Process configuration.

5. Applications & Tools

   Application reports. Case studies. Designing and Configuration Tools. Real world challenges. Test environments for configuration knowledge bases.

We hope to attract a balance of

• new and innovative papers on theoretical issues, justified by practical concerns,
• practical applications, preferably applying a well defined theory model,
• thorough case studies highlighting practical problems, needs and experiences, especially long term experiences and new cases in, for instance, e-commerce applications.