First a little back ground…

Supply Chain Management (SCM), Field Service Management (FSM), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP)… these and other similar types of enterprise systems all share a common theme of managing and optimizing ‘resources’.

Enterprise systems require flexibility, being able to view and strategically position Resources so that the Who’s doing What, Where, When and Why – can all be managed with intuitive Drag and Drop data presentations.  DBI’s data management and presentation component software – Solutions Schedule and Studio Controls have been the go-to standards for Enterprise Windows developers for 21 years.

Through the evolution of our award winning component products, DBI has worked diligently to maintain the integrity of our customer’s original investment in their development tools.

Case-In-Point:
Jonathan L. with a long time customer providing commercial Warehouse Management Systems in Europe, was setting up a new development system. In the course of building the new system he looked to activate an archive installation of Solutions Schedule .NET v1.0 (released in 2005) which was originally implemented in the development of their software. To say the least, much has transpired since the release of Solutions Schedule .NET v1.0 in 2005. Through the course of our conversation and a quick overview of the latest enhancements crafted into Solutions Schedule .NET 7.0, the current shipping and Windows 10 supported product – Jonathan downloaded the current evaluation license and tested it out on a copy of their solution.

In the copy of their application Jonathan changed the references from dbiScheduleE.dll version 1.0 to dbiScheduleE.dll version 7.0 and within an astonishing brief 20 minutes he was starting to implement new features in their application, without having to recode or rewrite any of the original code. Twelve years after their original purchase of Solutions Schedule .NET upgraded to the latest version and picked up without missing a beat!

In Jonathan’s own words…”I did a fast test and I was able to use Solutions Schedule .NET  v7.0 with only 20min of work. That is definitely incredible backward compatibility.” http://bit.ly/0916NB

What were the salient points from Martin Luther Kings’ famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech – remember? We remember what the demonstration was about and the impact of that day in history – that speech – what were the quotable quotes?

In today’s hyper world of ‘Now’ – how would you find these key phrases? This is a great example of where the xAIgent (ex-ai-gent) key phrase retrieval system (RESTful Service) shines: The speech – six pages in length, comprising 1667 words, organized in 44 paragraphs, 7458 characters – What were the top 30 key phrases from his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech?

Let’s find out…

xAIgent.com – xAIgent RESTful Service Sample – Online Demo

Objectively and accurately, how can we discern the top 30 key phrases from Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech in today’s impatient world of ‘Now’?

Simple – xAIgent RESTful Service *1 = http://www.xAIgent.com, here’s what it looks like:

• A – copy the text of the speech
• B – paste the copied speech into the xAIgent Demo Application
• C – Set the Key Phrase selector dial to 30
• D – Plug in the captcha auth code
• E – Click the ‘Run the xAIgent’ button

And the five step process is simply this…

A – copy the text of the speech

– paste the copied speech into the xAIgent Demo Application

C – Set the Key Phrase selector dial to 30

D – Plug in the captcha auth code

E – Click the ‘Run the xAIgent’ button

In a matter of milliseconds the xAIgent RESTful service sends your request to DBI’s hosted service and returns to you the top 30 key phrases from Martin Luther King Jr’s famous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech including highlights from the body of the speech that demonstrates why each keyphrase is important (in this example). Here are the results in descending order of importance*:

1. FREEDOM
Score: 23.29412
Highlight: I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

2. NEGRO
Score: 15.141178
Highlight: This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.

3. FREEDOM RING
Score: 12
Highlight: And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

4. NATION
Score: 11.64706
Highlight: I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

5. DREAM
Score: 11
Highlight: And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

6. AMERICA
Score: 10.482354
Highlight: It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.

7. JUSTICE
Score: 9.317648
Highlight: And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

8. SATISFY
Score: 9
Highlight: Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

9. MOUNTAIN
Score: 7
Highlight: we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

10. FAITH
Score: 5
Highlight: and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

11. BROTHERHOOD
Score: 5
Highlight: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

12. PROMISSORY
Score: 4.658824
Highlight: When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

13. LAND
Score: 4.658824
Highlight: the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

14. MISSISSIPPI
Score: 4
Highlight: We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

15. RIGHTS
Score: 3.494118
Highlight: And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

16. PROMISSORY NOTE
Score: 3.494118
Highlight: When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

17. LIVES
Score: 3.494118
Highlight: the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

18. INJUSTICE
Score: 3.494118
Highlight: This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.

19. SLAVES
Score: 3.494118
Highlight: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

20. HILL
Score: 3
Highlight: Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

21. GEORGIA
Score: 3
Highlight: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

22. ALABAMA
Score: 3
Highlight: I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

23. SWELTERING
Score: 3
Highlight: I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

24. VALLEY
Score: 3
Highlight: Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

25. RISE
Score: 3
Highlight: Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

26. TRANQUILIZING
Score: 2.329412
Highlight: This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

27. URGENCY
Score: 2.329412
Highlight: We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.

28. REFUSE
Score: 2.329412
Highlight: We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

29. INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
Score: 2.329412
Highlight: We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

30. CITIZENS
Score: 2.329412
Highlight: It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.

You will notice that key terms – Freedom and Nation are high in the ranking and draw emphasis from the same paragraph, however, in different context. The ability of xAIgent to discern Context, while accurately and objectively providing key term summary highlights is a unique characteristic of the xAIgent RESTful Service.

Also, ‘I have a dream’ is obviously a key element that appears later on in the speech and we see that relevance in the Key Phrases and their highlights – and how this theme is given contextual emphasis from different words used in the speech drawing specific attention.

This type of contextual accuracy is not possible using a referential-based system – to gain the currency of ‘Context’ along with objective accuracy – xAIgent is the only solution.

As a RESTful Service, xAIgent is very simple to implement in to a project – see how: Sample Setup Code

Subscribe to a full free developer evaluation here :: http://www.xAIgent.com – slide down to the 5th item in the list and click on the link.

xAIgent Today !

“There will be more really great content too, but snagging it in an ocean of banal junk will be harder than ever.  It is this avalanche of content that will make context the scarce resource.”

The words of well known Futurist / Forecaster Paul Saffo.

And the conversation continues… context won’t really be the gold commodity of the time – “Point of view” will be.  ‘That quintessentially-human solution to information overload, an intuitive process of reducing things to an essential relevant and manageable minimum.’

Much like the 16th century proverb – ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, we are at a new point where technology can answer the current need – for context, and Point of View out of the growing ocean of content.  A solution with a narrowed focus, simplified implementation and the ability to quickly derive near perfect ‘Point of View’.

The necessity, the desire – distill content into contextually accurate ‘Points of View’ – in more common terms of this webified world  –  key phrases and keywords.  If only there were an easily consumable technology – a RESTful service for instance that answered the call.   There is – it’s called  xAIgent.

See how you can make your content relevant and manageable.    http://www.xAIgent.com

Do you keep half an eye on what’s happening in the global software market?  It’s interesting to note the strong sector growth for those segments that relate to the supply of goods and services and those that focus on ‘the relationship’ – and specifically the Customer Relationship Management. You’ve got it right, CRM, ERP, SCM, HMS / HIS, FSM and the like have all seen notable increases in growth worldwide this past year – ranging from 8% to 13% and the forecast from various industry analysts concur  continued growth will maintain at a similar pace through 2020.

It’s no surprise that many of the software companies serving these market segments are long time DBI customers. Where the Solutions Schedule and Studio Controls product lines offer unique solutions for what can be extremely complex programming requirements.

For those in the midst of challenging some of these complexities using creative scheduling and UI design concepts we offer one more tool for your toolbox – and may be surprisingly to some – an open source .NET Warehouse and Shipments Scheduling Framework. Navigate to CodePlex and look for the ‘Warehouse Scheduling Framework’ – https://dbischedulingframework.codeplex.com

Do you keep half an eye on what’s happening in the global software market?  It’s interesting to note the strong sector growth for those segments that relate to the supply of goods and services and those that focus on ‘the relationship’ – and specifically the Customer Relationship Management. You’ve got it right, CRM, ERP, SCM, HMS / HIS, FSM and the like have all seen notable increases in growth worldwide this past year – ranging from 8% to 13% and the forecast from various industry analysts concur  continued growth will maintain at a similar pace through 2020.

It’s no surprise that many of the software companies serving these market segments are long time DBI customers. Where the Solutions Schedule and Studio Controls product lines offer unique solutions for what can be extremely complex programming requirements.

For those in the midst of challenging some of these complexities using creative scheduling and UI design concepts DBI is now offering one more developer tool for the Visual Studio toolbox – which may come as a surprise for some – an open source .NET Warehouse and Shipments Scheduling Framework. Navigate to CodePlex and look for the ‘Warehouse Scheduling Framework’ – https://dbischedulingframework.codeplex.com

Scheduling :     for many of us scheduling is a common term for referencing a period of time allocated for an activity. That allocation may be contrasted against a vertical time-line (ruler) as is common with day timers, Microsoft Outlook and other appointment book presentations. DBI represents this type of functionality in the calendar and appointment scheduling controls found in Studio Controls.

An alternate perspective in scheduling may be termed as Gantt-style, a common reference in project management, where a value of time (time bar) is associated with a resource in relation to a horizontal time line (ruler). Gantt includes a definition where the relation of activities on a time line (ruler) may be linked or have affect to other activities/ resources along the same time line. The concept of Gantt in terms of scheduling resources (assets) allows a quick reference of availability which may or may not be directly related to other entities. The ability at a high level to see what a list of resources are doing, when, where, how and why. DBI represents this type of Macro Scheduling application functionality in terms of  Solutions Schedule.

TERMINOLOGY

There are three distinct perspectives to the term scheduling; Appointment Scheduling, Multi-Resource / Asset Management Scheduling and Project management. Project management incorporates an element of timeline scheduling, however, its true value is in managing a collection of required resources to complete a series of tasks in direct relation to each other, over a proposed period of time. Appointment scheduling focuses on an individual entity or entities over a series of hours or days. What may be termed as micro scheduling. Multi-resource and asset management scheduling on the other hand focuses on a list of entities (typically a Y axis presentation) and their status along a fixed or varying time line (an X axis orientation) which may include other relational information captured by an associated time bar. The concept of macro scheduling may be termed in this context.

In many scheduling instances macro (resource) and micro (appointment) scheduling views are needed to give end-users the right tools at the right time and to correctly present and interact with time-based relational information. For an in-depth discussion with Visual Studio sample code navigate to… Case Study