An Integrated Development Environment for the Design and Maintenance of Large Configuration Knowledge Bases

Configuration problems are a thriving application area for declarative knowledge representation that experiences a constant increase in size and complexity of knowledge bases. A key issue in this context is the integrated support of configuration knowledge base development and maintenance. This paper presents an integrated development environment consisting of three major components, namely a design component which supports the conceptual design of the configuration model in UML (Unified Modeling Language) and automatic translation of the design model into a logic representation, a configuration component which allows the interactive design of concrete configurations, and finally a diagnosis component which supports the validation of the generated knowledge bases and the diagnosis of user requirements. An example for configuring computer systems shows the whole process from the design of the configuration model to the interactive configuration of the final product.