The thrust in developing KBSs in the bread field has come from the Cereals and
Cereal Processing Division of the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research
Association (CCFRA). This division continued the cereals-based technological
function of the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association (FMBRA) when
it merged with Campden Food and Drink Research Association in 1995.
Aspects of the accumulated knowledge in bread technology which spanned
40 years were available for use in the development of the systems described in
this chapter. The criteria required, that of sound knowledge and defined domain
bounds, were met and all of the systems are in use in the industry helping bakery
technologists provide quality products for their customers and so will serve as
examples to help readers understand how knowledge can be used in these forms.
7.2.1. Bread advisor
In 1990, a Bread Faults Expert System (Young, 1991) was released. Its domain
was white pan breads made using the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP)
(Chapter 2). Its original research objective was to determine whether the
knowledge-based systems area of computing science could be applied for the
benefit of the baking industry. The potential for such systems was soon realized
and the objective was extended to produce a commercially available computer
program for the industry. The knowledge of faults was underpinned with baking
trials and the manifestations of the faults were recorded photographically. These
photographs were included in a manual which accompanied the system. When
this system was developed in 1989, the expense of including these images in
the computer-based system would have been prohibitive in cost and hardware
memory.
Computer science has advanced tremendously since this first system and
that along with the falling cost (in real terms) of computer hardware has seen
development of such systems in other domains of baking technology, for example
Cake Expert System – Fault DoC (Petryzsak et al., 1995),BALANCE (Young
et al., 2001), ERH CALC™ (CCFRA, 2000). With these advances in computer
science and the advent of the Internet, the potential for using knowledge systems
was further realized by the development of a Bread Advisor, following the
footsteps of the Bread Faults Expert System. However, the domain was widened
to include knowledge about the technology of producing a variety of fermented
bread types by the five main processing methods, making the software a tool for
use in many countries around the world. The Bread Advisor was developed not
only as a stand-alone software system to be used like any other computer program
on a desktop or portable pc, but also as a ‘back-end’ program for use from a pc
acting as a server with all that this enabled – multi-user access either from within
a baking company or via the Internet. The latter, however, was only implemented
as a demonstrator system. The former was made available commercially in 2000
(CCFRA) and is now in use in many companies worldwide