Project No.: 5003-054537 01.07.98 - 31.12.99

Project leader: Prof. Boi Faltings, Lab. d‘Intelligence Artificielle Département d‘informatique, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL)
e-mail: faltings@lia.di.epfl.ch

Name of project: Scalable intelligent electronic catalogue

Partners:
Dr. Katharina Stanoevska-Slabeva, Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen
Simon Field, IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Rüschlikon
Dr. Pearl Pu, Département de Microtechnique, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL)

Walter Scharer, Atraxis AG, Zurich Airport
Kuster Rolf, Zürich Versicherungen, Zurich

Funding: Sfr 302,986.-

Summary:
Conventional electronic catalogues are based on the facilities offered by the HTML language and provide for little more than a simple keyword search capability. The goal of this project is to develop a tool based on the principle of constraint satisfaction. It supports the customer in making choices. Its innovative aspect lies essentially in providing a systematic product description which not only features text but is also formulated in a constraint programming-based language. This allows customers not only to express product attributes but also to describe constraints on their values, and offers support for the following three techniques:

• Flexible search tools: customers can specify their requirements through constraints rather than specific attributes.
• Configuration tools: using a constraint-based product representation makes a search for a combination of elements taken from different catalogues formally identical to searching within a single catalogue. This is an elegant solution to constructing brokerage agents which combine different offers.
• Visualization tools: using visualization techniques, the customer can visualize various alternatives at every step, resolve overconstrained situations and get help in formulating his problem.

An additional challenge is posed by the fact that interaction has to occur in real time and possibly with a large number of users. To create scalable solutions, computation must be distributed over the network. Complex calculations can be built into the catalogue on the client side with the use of Java applets, constituting another major innovation in this project.

Cooperation:
The new tools will be developed and validated in cooperation with two industrial partners. Atraxis AG will apply the tools to the schedule and online booking of Swissair flights. Zurich Insurance will apply them to the configuration and sale of insurance.