Decision Support for Joint Test and Diagnosis of Production Systems based on a Concept of Shared Knowledge

Abstract

Sharing knowledge and experience between test and diagnosis of production systems is a key to reduce faults and increase the availability. In distributed productions with several factories on different locations, the knowledge sharing becomes an important issue because direct communication between the test and maintenance teams is hardly possible. Based on test and diagnosis of an industrial quality assurance system we propose a combined decision support system for test and diagnosis that automatically shares the knowledge between both support functions. Using a decision support system motivates users to properly formalize their knowledge and reduces communication overhead. Maintainers are supported by an automatic fault diagnosis based on fault symptoms. Testers are supported by a test progress overview and a test case prioritization. By linking test cases to fault symptoms, the diagnosis is enriched by a test case recommendation for further fault isolation and the test case prioritization is expanded by a fault symptom coverage as a criterion that addresses in-field faults. As demonstrated with the industrial quality assurance system, both leads to synergy effects that improve the support functions and reduce overhead communication.