Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edi-l
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 11:42:49 -0700
From:         Bill Laidley <WLAIDLEY@BCSC02.BITNET>
Subject:      AI & EDI: a rebuttal

 On 92/07/24 Randall Smith said:

 "There has been a fair amount of talk recently on the net about AI and EDI. At
 the present state of development of both these I can only describe this as a
 marriage conceived in hell. Granted, AI is becoming less of a vapor and
 assuming some degree of permanance, and may well alleviate some of the
 integration problems and apply some degree of intelligence to the process. But
 when?"

 <<start of soapbox>>

 In an answer to the question 'But when?' I'd have to say quite soon. John
 Nagle's scenario (which I really liked, by the way- it is a great example of
 what I had in mind) exists today in the automated trading systems used in
 stock markets around the world. All that is missing is the EDI component. And
 frankly, adding EDI would be the simple part of the development process. My
 understanding of the trading systems is that they involve multiple computers
 communicating using proprietary standards over networks. Sound familiar?

 To stretch John's example even further - AI researchers at Apple have been
 working for at least 5 years on 'autonomous agents'. Computer programs which
 have a knowledge of an individual's interests that can independently search
 databases (both local and those accessible over networks) to find information
 of use to the person that they work for. Independently! I've no idea when, if
 ever, these programs will be available commercially. But just imagine - what
 if you could instruct them to find 1000 units of part XXX for delivery in 10
 days and they then went looking for suppliers. Perhaps they could send EDI
 messages back to a 'controller' that used linear programming techniques to
 optimize for delivery time, quality and price. Am I getting your interest?
 None of this is new technology. Just new applications of it.

 <<now on a different soapbox>>

 AI. Artificial Intelligence. Over the years AI gurus have made some completely
 absurd claims/forecasts. No question about it (and hopefully some embarassment
 on their part). Be that as it may AI has in general been very fruitful.
 Computer technologies have benefited greatly from the spawn of AI research.
 Object oriented programming/analysis/databases. Expert systems. Neural
 networks. Natural language. Logic programming. Useful stuff. Various wags have
 stated that its no longer AI once we know how to do it... And lets face it
 Randall- from a strict calendar basis AI has been around a damn sight longer
 than EDI, with more resources to boot.

 <<now I'm stacking soapboxes>>

 So what would the progeny of the marriage of AI and EDI be? Here's some of my
 thoughts and speculations...

 Expert systems: how about one or more expert systems embedded into an EDI
 translator? They could: 1. assist in the development of maps, 2. assist in the
 use of the standards, 3. help the users understand the cryptic messages from
 the networks (have you tried reading the error messages from IIN?), 4. do some
 pre or post processing of EDI transactions (data validation, reasonableness
 checks...). 'Upper CASE' CASE tools (those with some intelligence instead of
 just being a drawing program) use embedded expert systems. I wonder if they're
 onto something. (footnote: I know a fellow who worked for a wholesale lighting
 firm developing expert systems that run in AutoCAD using AutoLISP. The systems
 do things like layout out light fixtures for factories. His employer gave the
 systems out to clients. Useful sales tools.)

 Object oriented whatevers: what if the EDI translator was developed using an
 object oriented language? What would it look like? What would the benefits be?
 EDI translators have been stuck in the mire of table processing for years-
 since one of the standards organizations (DISA or TDCC I think) gave away
 COBOL source code to build table driven EDI translation programs (free by the
 way). The only alternate approaches I've seen have come from the Unix world -
 and they are only extensions of the table concept (I believe). Isn't it time
 for a few fresh ideas? Unfortunately learning Smalltalk has been on my to do
 list for about 2 years, so I can't speculate on the impact in detail, but
 nonetheless I think that an object oriented approach to EDI translators would
 make an significant difference.

 Neural networks: I can't see an application at the moment, but I'm sure that
 there are possibilities. Probably in the area of recognising incoming data.

 Natural language: Menus are useful, but limiting. If EDI translators stored
 everything (and I mean absolutely everything) in databases using a DBMS, we
 could have a natural language interface as well as or instead of menus. Why go
 through multiple screens in search of data when we could just ask a question?
 Here's an example- we send purchase orders to suppliers. The suppliers send us
 purchase order acknowledgements. No EDI package I've seen allows me to see
 which puchase orders have not been acknowledged (with an 855). They do if I'm
 willing to use screen dumps or printouts and manually balance them. Why can't
 I enter a query like 'SHOW ME ALL 850'S THAT HAVEN'T BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED?' I can
 do it today, with existing commercially available software, against databases
 that use any number of DBMS's. I can even enter queries that run against
 multiple DBMS's simultaneously. Is this vapor? (KBMS from AI Corp has had this
 capability since it was released in the mid eighties. KBMS, to answer the
 inevitable question, is an expert system shell- quite expensive and probably
 the best in the market)

 Logic programming: Another tough one. Prolog is being used today to run models
 developed as a part of the system analysis process. Running the model allows
 the analysts to test for completeness, for 'miracles' and 'black holes'. I've
 considered building a model of the entire EDI process - not just the internal
 process, but the entire flow. Buyer, network and suppliers. I'm not sure what
 I'd learn from constructing such a model (if nothing else I'd get much better
 at Prolog). I might be able to use it for 'what-if' analysis (what if we
 remove this process? does the information still flow?).

 <<end of soapboxes>>

 Over to you Randall...

 Regards, Bill Laidley
 EDI Expert Team
 BC Systems Corp. Vancouver (604) 660-9705
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU