Introduction:

The Associates at Yorktown Technologies Inc. (YTI) use several advanced techniques to quickly deliver business change embodied in an OS/2 platform. One of these, object-oriented analysis and design, is a key component that enables breakthrough revelati ons regarding current business practices. This "fresh" technique establishes business requirements that are expressed in the language of the user, enabling improved communications and direct automation without the translations inherent in traditional dev elopment. Rapid prototyping with SmallTalk provides timely feedback to the users, providing the necessary iteration needed to validate understanding, ensuring that the solution meets current and evolving business needs.

We combine this prototyping with integrated expert systems, allowing expertise in a particular business function to be expressed directly in textual rules without programming. For example, we use this facility to implement "Soft Navigation" in which the business flow is expressed in such textual rules, making them easy to implement and easy to change. Complex relationships can be expressed more easily in rules than can be implemented in program code. Changes in business workflow are expressed by changing these text-based rules, eliminating the coding, compiling, testing, and integration steps needed in traditional programming. Soft Navigation also permits the system to be adapted to an individual user's work patterns, preferences, and experience as well as to any special conditions that may be present within the work environment itself.

We also use an exclusive new software technology, the multiple probabilistic neural network models, which make the neural network a practical, cost-effective tool for deployment as a component of inexpensive new business solutions. These models can be have like an apprentice, learning in an iterative manner, creating immediate delegation and productivity opportunities with today's technology, expanding on the domain covered by text-based rules in our integrated rule-based expert syste m.

We have called this set of evolutionary tools and techniques The Master's Apprentice®. It opens the application of technology to many new areas in the business arena at a new level of price/performance. YTI intends to remain a research and development company. Our size will be limited to stay nimble. Successful ventures that require higher staffing levels will continue to be spun off in the process of "commercializing" them. Our motto is Using Technology to Drive Business Leverage through successful consulting engagements with our clients. We are targeting a number of areas with The Master's Apprentice. We recognize that we need the help of experts who understand va rious industry segments and who already have credible network contacts in those areas. We call these experts YTI Champions.

Yorktown's Champion Program

YTI Champions are the people who can discover and propose YTI engagements in areas where The Master's Apprentice can create breakthrough results. Champions are compensated with a finders fee for every engagement. The successful completion of such enga gements will result in a software asset being created that can be deployed in related client situations.

The Champion then has the opportunity to develop a company that pursues the commercialization of the software solution. Typically this would be in a non-competing geography from that where the initial client is operating. The initial client can also be a participant in this phase if they are willing to invest in the marketing costs required to develop the other markets. Sometimes several successive custom engagements are required to fully develop the commercial offering prior to full-scale commercializ ation.

YTI performs skills transfer to help the Champion develop their company. We also have experience with raising investment capital and with market research, product development, and business planning to support the effort. We have a significant network of associates to enable us to be effective in assessing and achieving realistic new market opportunities. Potential YTI Champions are exposed to professional psychological testing to assess their capabilities and potential and also to ascertain where the y may need assistance to attain maximum effectiveness. The key criterion for acceptance is a proven record as an expert in the particular field in which the solution will be developed.

The results of the Champion program can be fourfold. The Champion may become:

1. a senior executive of the commercialization company,
   
2. an executive in the companies they have engaged in the marketing process,
   
3. a networked expert in their field to pursue further contract consulting engagements and new champions, or
   
4. some combination of the first three.

YTI has experience and software assets through engagements in the following areas:

• relationship banking workbench to implement proactive client service
  
• automated psychological testing for screening and job placement
  
• survey data collection and summary presentation via automated FAX input
  
• jewellery appraisals that establish consistent standards of quality
  
• a radical new open database and relational processing system
  
• a loans origination system for independent outbound agents.

We have activity and are soliciting expressions of interest in the following areas:

• a predictive maintenance system for continuously operating machinery
  
• investment products sales workbench
  
• improved insurance claims underwriting system
  
• real estate client workbench for significantly reduced decison-cycle
  
• product visualization and expert order entry system
  
• fraud detection for credit cards and customer bankruptcy
  
• automated repair of computer system parts
  
• police case management and suspect interviewing techniques system.

We are also interested in initiating activity with new levels of industry performance in:

• intelligent planning systems - both business and project planning
  
• consultants who have established a successful practice (with no leverage)
  
• intelligent personal systems (rather than ones that emulate old paradigms)
  
• other applications of the proactive service client workbench
  
• intelligent database marketing techniques
  
• supplementing any Master in current business (such as in manufacturing)
  
• any other area where a prospective champion believes that the various components of The Master's Apprentice might apply.

If you are interested in pursuing The Master's Apprentice as a YTI Champion, please get in touch with us at yti@compuserve.com. We expect all prospective Champions to be articulate in their area of expertise and to have a solid network of prospective clients for potential application of The Master's Apprentice. Please contact us if you have ten years experience and are interested in becoming a champion using our approach.

We use OS/2 Smalltalk (with WindowBuilder) from ParcPlace. While our prototyping and development activities use OS/2, the production applications can be deployed in traditional hosts, and in most of the popular client/server configurations.

If you have a high leverage potential application of our tools in your company and lack sufficient justification to proceed on you own, please drop us a detailed note for a free assessment..

To send us an eMail, just click here and include your CV details

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