INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR AN INDUSTRIAL PROCESS AND AN EXTERNAL ENTITY

摘要

An information system (2) manages functional units (12-20) having a function related to operation of an industrial process or electric energy enterprise (6), such as a nuclear utility. The functional units (12-20) maintain a knowledge set (26-34) representative of information pertaining to the function thereof. The information system (2) includes plural first databases (40-48) associated with the functional units (12-20) for storing the knowledge sets (26-34) maintained thereby; plural second databases (50-52) associated with entities (8-10); such as vendors (10) or other enterprises (8), external to the electric energy enterprise (6) for storing the knowledge sets (36-38) maintained by the entities (8-10); a remote communications network (4) for linking each of the first and second databases (40-52); a inquiry mechanism (66-76) for inputting an inquiry related to the first and second databases (40-52); and an artificial intelligence mechanism (78) for searching the first and second databases (40-52) in response to the inquiry in order to determine whether the knowledge sets (26-38) of the first and second databases (40-52) contain information pertinent to the inquiry, and to retrieve the information pertinent to the inquiry from the first and second databases (40-52).