Scientia Technologies (Vancouver, Canada) is developing an advanced knowledge based expert system called SMaRT. It offers tangible benefits for all involved in the acquisition and integration of complex marine systems helping to reduce costs and mitigate major risks. Lack of experienced resources combined with short time scales and limited availability of relevant information lead to errors with costly consequences. Depending on where the errors are detected, costs can escalate very quickly. The use of an expert system enables errors to be captured sooner through the use of rigorous process and consistency checking.

SMaRT guides less experienced user to follow a well engineered process and provides access to contextual information used in the decision making process. Accurate technical documentation critical to the procurement and integration processes is produced in a fraction of time when compared to manual methods. While the SMaRT expert system offers immediate savings in terms of lower engineering costs, more important benefits are related to improved quality and reduced ambiguity leading to fewer project delays, reduced risk, lower dispute resolution costs and ultimately the elimination of costly errors.

Knowledge-based systems use artificial intelligence to provide interactive and consistent expert knowledge. In many cases, companies’ economic future depends on the ability to retain and reuse the corporate knowledge in order to maintain their competitiveness. Scientia Technologies develops software that allows effective capturing of the corporate memory for dedicated in-house SMaRT applications. This ability of capturing and modeling the expertise, before it vanishes, is critical in the marine industry that is seriously affected by continually diminishing resources. As such, the SMaRT system offers major advantages to ship owners, shipyards and suppliers, all of who have a stake in risk management.