The example used in this tutorial describes a flight planning business problem in which an air cargo company collects cargo of various sizes and weights, loads them into containers, and then places the containers onto its fleet of aircraft prior to shipment.

To operate safely, the company must ensure that an aircraft is never loaded with cargo that exceeds an aircraft’s capabilities. Part of the flight planning process involves verifying that no flight violates any safety or operational rule.

The air cargo company wants to improve the quality and efficiency of the flight planning process by modeling and automating business rules using Corticon.

Complex problems such as flight planning are better described in their component parts. The best way to do this is by describing the business process. From a process diagram, we can easily identify the decision-making activities, which in turn are described by business rules.

First, we define the business process as a sequence of activities or steps:

Next, we determine which process steps involve decisions. Any step involving a decision is a candidate for automation using Corticon.

In this process, all three steps involve decisions, in addition to physical labor. The scope of this tutorial is the Package Cargo step, which involves the decision about what container to use for various cargo based upon the cargo’s weight and volume.

Today, the packaging decision is made by shipping personnel based upon their experience. The problem is that some people make better decisions than others, which leads to inconsistent practices. We want to use Corticon to standardize and automate the packaging decision.