Use of associate memory learning agent technology to identify interchangeable parts in parts catalogs

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium including computer usable program code for identifying interchangeable parts in parts catalogs, said computer program product comprising:
• computer usable program code for searching a set of catalogs for first attributes for a set of parts using an intelligent agent;
• computer usable program code for comparing, by the intelligent agent, the first attributes for the set of parts to a set of second attributes for a selected part;
• computer usable program code for assigning a weight to each of the first attributes based on whether each of the first attributes is correlated to an attribute in the set of second attributes;
• computer usable program code for ranking each part in the set of parts using the weight assigned to each attribute in the first attributes;
• and
• computer usable program code for identifying a set of interchangeable parts using the ranking for each part in the set of parts.

An apparatus comprising:

• a bus system;
• a communications system connected to the bus system;
• a memory connected to the bus system, wherein the memory includes computer usable program code;
• and
• a processing unit connected to the bus system, wherein the processing unit executes the computer usable program code to search a set of catalogs for first attributes for a set of parts using an intelligent agent;
• compare, by the intelligent agent, the first attributes for the set of parts to a set of second attributes for a selected part;
• assign a weight to each of the first attributes based on whether each of the first attributes is correlated to an attribute in the set of second attributes;
• rank each part in the set of parts using the weight assigned to each attribute in the first attributes;
• and identify a set of interchangeable parts using the ranking for each part in the set of parts.

A computer implemented method for identifying interchangeable parts, the computer implemented method comprising:

• identifying a set of attributes for each part in a set of parts;
• assigning a rank to each part in the set of parts based on a degree of correlation between the set of attributes for a part in the set of parts and a set of identified attributes to form a set of ranked parts;
• and
• identifying a set of interchangeable parts from the set of parts using the set of ranked parts.