How our technology solves business problems
Our talented programmers produce pioneering RippleDownTMtechnology based on sophisticated rules building concepts for organisations with "mission critical" environments, across 70 locations, in sectors as diverse as laboratories, universities, hospitals, airlines and proof-of-concept projects.
RippleDownTM provides intelligent support for repetitive tasks that are expert in nature and can only be performed by certain individuals with specific expertise and knowledge. Wherever human judgment about data is required, RippleDownTM can replicate an automated expert conclusion.
That was the birth of RippleDownTM as an idea - a technology that could fundamentally simplify software development at the user end, for subject matter experts without programming skills.
The result is patented software technology that allows the user to develop a set of rules that mimic their own thoughts and actions. To achieve this, users are taught to breakdown these thoughts and actions into simple steps and capture this expert knowledge in an automated knowledge base. While RippleDownTM draws from the knowledge base to replicate automated reports in natural language, the expert is free to focus on special cases.
Where conventional rules based software is reported to take between 38-308 minutes for the IT department to add each new rule, RippleDownTM is the only software worldwide that can infinitely add new rules in less than 2 minutes by the expert alone. Therein avoiding the IT bottleneck.
Building B2B solutions
- The only software that allows experts to be in control of their knowledge
- Users do not require prior programming skills
- Software can be adapted to suit the client's needs
- Incremental/ iterative rule building (as opposed to upfront rule building)
- Capacity to build >500 new rules each month
Research and Development
Our RippleDownTM technology was motivated by Ripple Down Rules (RDR) research commencing at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in 1996 and was then developed at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. Emeritus Professor Paul Compton, who leads (RDR) research at UNSW, is also the senior research advisor for PKS. PKS supports RDR research by providing data in various forms and advice related to commercial experience. In turn, PKS benefits from early access to new research ideas. PKS views this as a rich and productive relationship, where each partner benefits from the exchange of real-world experience and the early access to results.
As well as collaborating with the UNSW, Pacific Knowledge Systems conducts internal research to extend the capabilities of our RippleDownTM technology. The current research areas include: new inference mechanisms; further automation in rule-building; new types of interactive interfaces; distributed knowledge bases; collaborative knowledge base development and data mining. This research is proprietary and patented where appropriate.
Our commitment in this area has exceeded several million dollars in recent years and the Board are committed to continue further extensive R&D to ensure our place as market leaders.
The Challenge of Rules Building
written by written by Professor Paul Compton (Emeritus) November 2011
This paper is intended for anyone who is considering developing a system using rules and who wants to get some understanding of what is involved in adding and maintaining rules.
