This paper describes an “intelligent” designer's aid that was developed to support the design of marine propulsion gears. Key elements of the system include: conversion of gear design formulas from a procedural to a declarative form to facilitate inspection; a direct-manipulation interface; and encoding of “expert” design constraint knowledge. The case study demonstrates that delivering “expert knowledge” is often only a small element of an “intelligent” support system, and provides a concrete illustration of the importance of a cognitive task analysis in defining the elements of an effective support system. This design solution should have applicability to other engineering design tasks.
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