A Methodology for Knowledge Reuse: Application in the Automatic Generation of Operational Protocols for Wastewater Treatment Plants

During the preliminary stages of many engineering design tasks, the underlying search space isunbounded and inexact. Initial decisions are made when information is incomplete and many goals arecontradictory. This sort of problem appeared in Catalonia for the identification of appropriate wastewatertreatment systems in small communities, as well as for proposing appropriate operational and maintenanceprotocols to these facilities. In this case, the Catalan Water Agency proposed to develop two EnvironmentalDecision Support Systems (EDSS), one to support the selection of the optimal treatment (EDSS-treatment)and another one to support the definition of appropriated operational and maintenance guides (EDSSmaintenance).This paper presents a methodology for supporting the automatic generation of protocols forsmall wastewater treatment plants operation and maintenance (EDD-maintenance) based on the reuse ofavailable knowledge, acquired during the development an implementation of the EDSS-treatment.