CBR model for the intelligent management of customer support centers

[EN] In this paper, a new CBR system for Technology Management Centers is presented. The system helps the staff of the centers to solve customer problems by finding solutions successfully applied to similar problems experienced in the past. This improves the satisfaction of customers and ensures a good reputation for the company who manages the center and thus, it may increase its profits. The CBR system is portable, flexible and multi-domain. It is implemented as a module of a help-desk application to make the CBR system as independent as possible of any change in the help-desk. Each phase of the reasoning cycle is implemented as a series of configurable plugins, making the CBR module easy to update and maintain. This system has been introduced and tested in a real Technology Management center ran by the Spanish company TISSAT S.A.Financial support from Spanish government under grant PROFIT FIT-340001-2004-11 is gratefully acknowledgeHeras Barberá, SM.; Garcia Pardo Gimenez De Los Galanes, JA.; Ramos-Garijo Font De Mora, R.; Palomares Chust, A.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Rebollo Pedruelo, M.; Botti, V. (2006). CBR model for the intelligent management of customer support centers. En Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Verlag (Germany). 663-670. https://doi.org/10.1007/11875581_80S663670Acorn, T., Walden, S.: SMART: SupportManagement Automated Reasoning Technology for Compaq Customer Service. In: Scott, A., Klahr, P. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2 International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, ITS-92 Berlin, vol. 4, pp. 3–18. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (1992)Simoudis, E.: Using Case-Based Retrieval for Customer Technical Support. IEEE Intelligent Systems 7, 10–12 (1992)Kriegsman, M., Barletta, R.: Building a Case-Based Help Desk Application. IEEE Expert: Intelligent Systems and Their Applications 8, 18–26 (1993)Shimazu, H., Shibata, A., Nihei, K.: Case-Based Retrieval Interface Adapted to Customer-Initiated Dialogues in Help Desk Operations. In: Mylopoulos, J., Reiter, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 12th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1, pp. 513–518. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (1994)Raman, R., Chang, K.H., Carlisle, W.H., Cross, J.H.: A self-improving helpdesk service system using case-based reasoning techniques. Computers in Industry 2, 113–125 (1996)Kang, B.H., Yoshida, K., Motoda, H., Compton, P.: Help Desk System with Intelligent Interface. Applied Artificial Intelligence 11, 611–631 (1997)Roth-Berghofer, T., Iglezakis, I.: Developing an Integrated Multilevel Help-Desk Support System. In: Proceedings of the 8th German Workshop on Case-Based Reasoning, pp. 145–155 (2000)Goker, M., Roth-Berghofer, T.: The development and utilization of the case-based help-desk support system HOMER. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 12, 665–680 (1999)Roth-Berghofer, T.R.: Learning from HOMER, a case-based help-desk support system. In: Melnik, G., Holz, H. (eds.) Advances in Learning Software Organizations, pp. 88–97. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Bergmann, R., Althoff, K.D., Breen, S., Göker, M., Manago, M., Traphöner, R., Wess, S.: Developing Industrial Case-Based Reasoning Applications. In: The INRECA Methodology, 2nd edn. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1612. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)eGain (2006), http://www.egain.comKaidara Software Corporation (2006), http://www.kaidara.com/Empolis Knowledge Management GmbH - Arvato AG (2006), http://www.empolis.com/Althoff, K.D., Auriol, E., Barletta, R., Manago, M.: A Review of Industrial Case-Based Reasoning Tools. AI Perspectives Report. Goodall, A., Oxford (1995)Watson, I.: Applying Case-Based Reasoning. Techniques for Enterprise Systems. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. California (1997)empolis: empolis Orenge Technology Whitepaper. Technical report, empolis GmbH (2002)Tissat, S.A. (2006), http://www.tissat.esGiraud-Carrier, C., Martinez, T.R.: An integrated framework for learning and reasoning. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 3, 147–185 (1995)Corchado, J.M., Borrajo, M.L., Pellicer, M.A., Yanez, J.C.: Neuro-symbolic system for Business Internal Control. In: Perner, P. (ed.) ICDM 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3275, pp. 1–10. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Aamodt, A., Plaza, E.: Case-based reasoning: foundational issues, methodological variations and system approaches. AI Communications 7(1), 39–59 (1994)Tversky, A.: Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84(4), 327–352 (1997

2004 Maintenance memories: beyond concepts and techniques for case base maintenance

Abstract. Maintenance of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) systems became an important area since applications of CBR technologies were established in different real-world domains. Maintenance issues cover all aspects that help to keep a running CBR system in a usable state of high quality. Concepts and techniques that were developed for maintenance of CBR systems range from methodologies and frameworks that particularly define phases, steps, and tasks necessary to integrate maintenance into the CBR process up to specific programs that enable CBR engineers to carry out the maintenance activities. In this paper, we exemplify this range of research on maintenance of CBR systems by brief characterizations of the SIAM methodology, the MAMA maintenance manual, and the MASH maintenance shell. The overall goal of this paper is then to conclude areas for further research in maintenance for CBR systems from the experience of the work on SIAM, MAMA, MASH, and related approaches.

Mapping Goals and Kinds of Explanations to the Knowledge Containers of Case-Based Reasoning Systems

Research on explanation in Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is a topic that gains momentum. In this context, fundamental issues on what are and to which end do we use explanations have to be reconsidered

Towards Conceptual Foundations for Context-Aware Applications

In this paper we aim at defining conceptual foundations for context-aware applications. We argue that the concepts of entity and context should be separated in conceptual models for context-aware applications. Further, we propose a novel approach that characterizes context as either intrinsic or relational. The concepts we propose in this paper have been inspired by and aligned with conceptual theories from the fields of philosophy and cognitive sciences. Since we concentrate on conceptual modeling, understandability and clarity are given precedence over properties such as efficiency and tractability

User Aspects of Explanation Aware CBR Systems

This paper addresses the problem of embedding explanationaware intelligent systems into a workplace environment. We outline an approach with three di#erent perspectives, focusing on the work process as a whole as well as user interaction from an interface and a system view

Explanations and Case-Based Reasoning: Foundational Issues

Abstract. By design, Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) systems do not need deep general knowledge. In contrast to (rule-based) expert systems, CBR systems can already be used with just some initial knowledge. Fur-ther knowledge can then be added manually or learned over time. CBR systems are not addressing a special group of users. Expert systems, on the other hand, are intended to solve problems similar to human ex-perts. Because of the complexity and difficulty of building and using expert systems, research in this area addressed generating explanations right from the beginning. But for knowledge-intensive CBR applications, the demand for explanations is also growing. This paper is a first pass on examining issues concerning explanations produced by CBR systems from the knowledge containers perspective. It discusses what naturally can be explained by each of the four knowledge containers (vocabulary, similarity measures, adaptation knowledge, and case base) in relation to scientific, conceptual, and cognitive explanations.