JPH0797317B2 - Information processing procedure generator - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Use of the Invention] The present invention relates to the use of an electronic computer for information processing.
The present invention relates to an information processing procedure generation device that determines necessary input data and a processing procedure for a system so that an operator can obtain required information even if he / she is not familiar with the mechanism of the information processing system.

[Background of the Invention]

For the conventional methods of building and operating information processing systems used in offices, see IPSJ Transactions, Vol. 25, N.
o.6, 909-919 (1984) Uota, et al. 3 people "Discussion of office information system by model adaptation" is discussed.

This method analyzes the information processing work in the office,
The information processing process is divided into a part (model) that can be widely used for various target jobs and a part (adapter) that is used for a specific job. When making an actual operation system using this, the operator selects a model necessary for the target business and combines it with an adapter specific to the business to construct an information processing procedure. As described above, this technique has a feature that various information processing procedures can be easily created by combining various accumulated models and adapters. However, when the operator uses it, it is assumed that he or she is familiar with such a mechanism and constructs the system as needed, so the necessary output information cannot be obtained without knowing the method of operating the system. That problem has not been solved.

In relation to this problem, a menu selection method is widely used as a method for guiding the operation of an information processing system in an office or a production workplace. However, in this method, the system displays the operation items that can be executed in the next step, and the operator selects them one by one to discover the countermeasures, so that the correspondence between the person and the system is one-sided. Moreover, there is a drawback in that the operator has a poor view of the target output result.

In information processing systems in offices and production workplaces, it is essential for the operator to be excellent, but the system that is the easiest for the operator to use is to show the contents of the information that he wants to output to the system. It will assemble the input method of data required for output and its processing procedure.

[Object of the Invention]

It is an object of the present invention to use an information processing system, even if the operator is not familiar with the system information processing mechanism, as long as the operator requests output, the rest of the operation is automatically performed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing procedure generation device that guides an operation method of a system by assembling input data and a processing procedure.

[Outline of Invention]

An information processing procedure generation device according to the present invention decomposes an information processing process handled in a target information processing system into basic processing units, and also processes itself so that a series of information processing can be performed as necessary. With the function of accumulating with the combination method and the information about the output requested by the operator as a clue, the processing already stored in the opposite direction to the original information processing flow of the target information processing system. Consists of a function that searches for units and their combination methods, determines and assembles the finally required input data and its processing procedure, and a function that inputs / outputs requests from the operator, asks questions to the operator, and responds to them. To do.

The idea when devising the production apparatus of the information processing procedure according to the present invention will be described below. First of all, if there is a person who wants to operate the information processing system for some purpose, and that person is not familiar with the information processing mechanism of the system, how to deal with the system that is considered to be the easiest for the operator is:
The operator requests the required output from the system. Based on this output request from the operator, the system basically decomposes the target information processing process into processing units in order to determine the input data and processing procedure necessary for the output. Finally, by accumulating these processing units one after another, starting from the output request from the operator, if necessary, until the necessary input data is stored. I thought it would be better to reach.

Example of Invention

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. Here, as an example, an information processing system that handles information on production management in a product production factory, such as planning a quantity of parts to be procured and a plan for assembling a product, will be described.

FIG. 1 shows a functional configuration of an embodiment of an information processing procedure generating apparatus according to the present invention. Here, 1 is a means for accumulating decomposed processing units and a combination method thereof, 3 is a means for inputting / outputting a request from an operator, asking a question to the operator, and a response, 2 is the information requested by 3 Is a means for assembling the input data necessary for outputting and the processing procedure thereof.

First, a method of decomposing the information processing process in production management into basic processing units and combining them into a computer and accumulating them in a computer will be described.

The information required by the person in charge of production control when actually performing production control in a product production factory can be expressed in a table format such as a production plan table or work instruction table, and the information for obtaining such information can be obtained. The data required for the calculation can also be represented in a table format such as a parts configuration table and a production period table. Therefore, the information processing process in the production control can be expressed as a repetition of conversion from tabular data to tabular data. Therefore, by utilizing this, one conversion from tabular data to tabular data is regarded as a basic processing unit in information processing of production control. A method of expressing and accumulating the processing units so that the combination method can be understood will be described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 2, 4 is a basic processing unit of an information processing process in an example of an information processing system that handles production management configured by repeating conversion of tabular data into tabular data (hereinafter referred to as a table). 5 shows a data structure for accumulating the combination method in the external storage device of the computer. in this way,
Table name 51 obtained by one conversion, procedure name 52 of this conversion, input table name 53 used for this conversion, item name 54 constituting the table obtained by conversion, and for calculating each item Information including the arithmetic expression 55 is stored in the external storage device of the computer. The information on the storage device including such elements is hereinafter referred to as knowledge, and the knowledge set is referred to as a knowledge base. Further, a table that cannot be created by any conversion is prepared in advance in the database of the information processing system as basic data for input. In this input basic data, as shown in FIG. 3, the locations of the conversion name 52, the input table 53, and the arithmetic expression 55 of the knowledge are left empty.

A more specific example of knowledge expression by this method will be described based on an example of an actual production management system. Fig. 4 shows the process of creating the parts necessary to make a product.
It shows how to convert a table when creating a production plan table 47 for parts, which includes information such as what kind of parts should be started and when. To get this table,
As input data, the production period tables 41 and 45, the parts composition table 43, and the product production planning table 42 are used, in the order shown in FIG.
Make UPDATE, JOIN, UPDATE type changes. In this example, the work table is converted into a table as input data and the required output table (in this example, the production planning table for parts)
It is a table that appears in the process of obtaining. Fifth
Figures (a) to (f) show the contents of knowledge in this example.

Next, with reference to FIG. 6, the means for determining the input data necessary to obtain the requested output and the processing procedure thereof by using the information regarding the output requested by the operator of the information processing system as a clue. explain. In FIG. 6, 10
0 is a knowledge base on an external storage device, 101 to 109 are knowledge, and 200 is a means for deciding necessary input data and its processing procedure.

In the example of FIG. 6, the knowledge base 100 includes the tables A, B, C, P, V, W,
Knowledge of X, Y, Z is stored. When the operator makes an output request for Table A, the system searches the knowledge base 100 of the external storage device, finds knowledge 107 about Table A, and decodes the contents. As a result, it can be seen that Table A is obtained from Tables B and C at the conversion t ₁ . Then the system
The knowledge 103 and 109 regarding B and C are found by searching the knowledge base 100, and the contents are decoded. Then, Table B
In the knowledge about, it can be seen that the input table and the conversion name are empty, and this is prepared in the system database in advance as the basic data for input. Also, from the knowledge about Table C, it can be seen that Table C can be obtained from Tables V and W by conversion t ₂ . Further, by searching the knowledge 104, 108 regarding the tables V and W and decoding them, it is understood that the tables V, W are the basic data for input. Due to the above, Table A requested by the operator
Can be obtained by subjecting the tables V and W to the transformation t _2, and then subjecting the resulting table C and the table B to the transformation t ₁ .

Further, when the knowledge base 100 has the knowledge as shown in FIG. 5, when the operator requests the output of the parts production plan table 47 by the method as shown in FIG. 4, this table is displayed. , The production period table 41 and the product production planning table 42 are converted by the type UPDATE, the resulting table 44 and the parts composition table 43 are converted by the type JOIN, and the resulting table is obtained.
46 and the production period table 45, it can be seen that it can be obtained by further applying the kind of conversion called UPDATE.

In this way, the system repeats the operations of searching for knowledge about the table from the knowledge base, finding out the content of the table by using the requested table name as a clue, and decoding and storing the content. When you reach what is prepared as data (knowledge, input table, conversion name, empty of arithmetic expression), a series of operations ends, and as a result, the basic data for input By conversely performing the above-described conversions in sequence, the input data necessary for obtaining the output requested by the operator and the processing procedure thereof can be generated.

Next, the means 3 for inputting / outputting a request from the operator, asking a question to the operator and responding thereto will be described.

First, the system requests the name of the table that the operator loves to output through the CRT display, as shown in FIG. 8 (step 300). If the name of this table has been prepared as knowledge in the knowledge base of the external storage device (301), the input data required to obtain the table and its processing procedure are determined by the mechanism as described above. To (306
~ 310). If the knowledge about the requested table name is not prepared, the system requests the operator for the item names that make up the table to be output (302). Then, it is searched whether knowledge about a table having item names including these item names exists in the knowledge base (303). If so, the input data required to obtain this table and its processing procedure are determined (306-310). If not, 7th
As shown, the requested item name is attempted to be decomposed into some combination of item names in the knowledge of the prepared table (304). If it can be decomposed, the input data to obtain each decomposed table and its processing procedure are determined (306 to 310). If not decomposable, the system indicates to the operator that the requested information cannot be output (305).

As described above, according to the information processing procedure generation device of the present invention, the operator does not need to be familiar with the system information processing mechanism, but only requests the system for information regarding the required output. After that, the system will automatically determine the necessary input data and the processing procedure.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain necessary information only by requesting the output of the system without being familiar with the information processing mechanism of the target information processing system. It has the economic effect of reducing the need to train

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a functional configuration of an embodiment of an information processing procedure generating device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a basic processing unit of an information processing process in a production management system and a combination method thereof. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a data structure for storing, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a data structure representing a table to be prepared in advance as input basic data, and FIG. 4 is
The figure which showed an example of the information processing process for production control, 5th
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a base structure of knowledge about the information processing process shown in FIG. 4, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a functional configuration for generating a necessary information processing procedure using the knowledge base,
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing decomposition of requested item names, and FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a process of generating an information processing procedure of an information processing system for production management by converting a table. 1 ... Means for storing disassembled processing units together with their combination method, 2 ... Means for assembling necessary input data and their processing procedure, 3 ... Input / output of requests from operators, questions, responses Means for carrying out 4 ... Basic processing unit of information processing in production control, 5 ... Data structure for storing basic processing unit in storage device of computer together with combination method, 100 ... Knowledge base, 101-109 ... …
Knowledge, 200 ... A means of recalling knowledge from the knowledge base, decoding the content, and temporarily storing it.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Kazuhiro Sugino 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Inside the Hitachi, Ltd. Institute of Industrial Science (72) Inventor Kenji Takeda 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa (72) Inventor Ryoichi Sakaino 4-6 Kanda Surugadai, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Inside Hitachi, Ltd. (56) References JP-A-60-24637 (JP, A) JP-A Sho 59-184956 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An information processing process in an information processing system is decomposed into basic processing units based on the concept of table conversion, and each item of output tabular data is input for each processing unit. Described by information that indicates that it is derived by the operation of each item of tabular data, it is called knowledge, and means for pre-storing it in a computer and information related to the output requested by the operator of the information processing system. As a clue, the above knowledge representing the already accumulated basic processing unit is searched, and if the information regarding the requested output matches the tabular data described in the above knowledge, the target information processing system is searched. In the opposite direction to the original flow of information processing, the above knowledge is traced, the knowledge that represents the finally necessary input tabular data is searched for, and the opposite direction is determined as the processing procedure. If the information on the requested output does not match the tabular data described in the above knowledge, the information on the requested output is divided into a plurality of pieces, and each divided information corresponds to the above knowledge. If it is included in a plurality of tabular data, the above knowledge is searched for each division information, and finally necessary input tabular data and the processing procedure are determined and assembled. Also, if each division information is the above If the knowledge is not included in a plurality of tabular data, a means for displaying a message and ending the processing, an input tabular data determined by the means, and an information processing based on the processing procedure are executed, and the operation described above is performed. Means for obtaining the result of the output requested by the operator, the input of the request from the operator and the display of the result of the requested output, the question and the response to the operator, the display of the above message, etc. Generating apparatus information processing steps to configure and means for performing.