Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

CaBMA: a case-based reasoning system for capturing, refining, and reusing project plans

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Knowledge and Information Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we present CaBMA, a prototype of a knowledge-based system designed to assist with project planning tasks using case-based reasoning. CaBMA introduces a novel approach to project planning in that, for the first time, a knowledge layer is added on top of traditional project management software. Project management software provides editing and bookkeeping capabilities. CaBMA enhances these capabilities by automatically capturing project plans in the form of cases, refining these cases over time to avoid potential inconsistency between them, reusing these cases to generate plans for new projects, and indicating possible repairs for project plans when they derive away from existing knowledge. We will give an overview of the system, provide a detailed explanation on each component, and present an empirical study based on synthetic data.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bergmann R, Stahl A (1998) Similarity measures for object-oriented case representations. In: Proceedings of the European workshop on case-based reasoning (EWCBR-98). Springer, Heidelberg

  2. Blythe J, Kim J, Ramachandran S, Gil Y (2001) An integrated environment for knowledge acquisition. In: Proceedings of the international conference on intelligent user interfaces

  3. Branting LK (2004) Learning feature weights from customer return-set selections. The Journal of Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS). Springer, Heidelberg

  4. Erol K, Nau D, Hendler J (1994) HTN planning: complexity and expressivity. In: Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-94). AAAI Press

  5. Hammond KJ, Chef (1986) A model of case-based planning. In: Proceedings of the national conference on artificial intelligence (AAAI-86). AAAI Press, Stockholm

  6. Li S, Yang Q (2001) ActiveCBR: an agent system that integrates case-based reasoning and active database. The Journal of Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS). Springer, Heidelberg

  7. Myers KL, Wilkins DE (1997) The Act Formalism. Artificial Intelligence Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, version 2.1 edn

  8. Mukammalla S, Muñoz-Avila H (2002) Case Acquisition in a Project Planning Environment. In: Proceedings of the 6th European conference on case-based reasoning (ECCBR-02). Springer, Heidelberg

  9. Muñoz-Avila H, Gupta K, Aha DW, Nau DS (2002) Knowledge Based Project Planning. Knowledge management and organizational memories

  10. Nau D, Cao Y, Lotem A, Muñoz-Avila H (1999) SHOP: simple hierarchical ordered planner. In: Proceedings of the international joint conference on artificial intelligence (IJCAI-99). AAAI Press, Stockholm

  11. Patterson DW, Anand SS, Dubitzky W, Hughes KG (1999) Towards automated case knowledge discovery in the M2 case-based reasoning system. The Journal of Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS). Springer, Heidelberg

  12. Petrie C (1992) Constrained decision revision. In: Proceedings of the National Conference of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-92). AAAI Press, Stockholm

  13. Project Management Institute (PMI) (1999) PMI’s a guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Technical Report. Release No.: PMI 70-029-99. Project Management Institute

  14. Smyth B, Keane MT (1995) Remembering to forget: a competence-preserving case deletion policy for case-based reasoning systems. In: Proceedings of international joint conference on artificial intelligence (IJCAI-95). AAAI Press, Stockholm

  15. Srivastava B, Kambhampati S (1999) Scaling up planning by teasing out resource scheduling. Technical Report ASU CSE TR 99-005. Arizona State University

  16. Tate A (1977) Generating project networks. In: Proceedings of the international joint conference on artificial intelligence (IJCAI-77), pp 888–893

  17. Wilkins DE (1988) Practical planning: extending the classical AI planning paradigm. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc

  18. Xu K, Muñoz-Avila H (2004) CaBMA: case-based project management assistant. In: Proceedings of the Innovative applications of artificial intelligence conference on artificial intelligence (IAAI-04). Springer, Heidelberg

  19. Xu K, Muñoz-Avila H (2003) CBM-Gen+: an algorithm for reducing case base inconsistencies in hierarchical and incomplete domains. In: Proceedings of the international conference on case-based reasoning (ICCBR-03). Springer, Heidelberg

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, 19 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA

    Ke Xu & Hèctor Muñoz-Avila

Authors
  1. Ke Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hèctor Muñoz-Avila
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hèctor Muñoz-Avila.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Xu, K., Muñoz-Avila, H. CaBMA: a case-based reasoning system for capturing, refining, and reusing project plans. Knowl Inf Syst 15, 215–232 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-007-0077-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-007-0077-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation