ER-Soft

Advanced Product Seeker

The ER-Soft Product Seeker is a powerful information search machine, keyword based on a global set of well selected keywords for the ER-Soft business area.

Each ER-Soft Product has an associated set of well selected keywords. The UNION of all ER-Soft Product keywords make up the global set of well selected keywords.

All the ER-Soft Product Seeker Keywords are Classified into the following keyword classes:

• Technology (Technology database)
• Manufacturer / Provider (Manufacturer/Provider database)
• Product Code (Product database)
• Product Name (Product database)
• Auxiliary Keyword

The keyword classification is provided as a help to the less experienced user in our business area to quickly identify the used terminology. All the keywords, except auxiliary keywords, offer more detailed information about their meaning and definition. The ER-Soft Product Seeker offer access to these individual information sources, so the concept also offer service as a kind if Specialized Dictionary.

The ER-Soft Product Seeker is a Real Powerful Multi-Dimensional Search Engine. It permits easy search of all products which keyword sub-sets have an INTERSECTION of product keywords.

Multi-Dimensional Search Engine allows the user can specify exactly what he wants to search: Advanced Product Search by the means of this simple formula:

	Result_Product_SubSet = Intersection (
		Search_Products( Keyword_11 OR Keyword_12 OR Keyword_13 ...) //Dimension 1
		AND Search_Products( Keyword_21 OR Keyword_22 OR Keyword_23 ...) //Dimension 2
		AND Search_Products( Keyword_31 OR Keyword_32 OR Keyword_33 ...) //Dimension 3
		...
		AND NOT Search_Products( Keyword_n1 OR Keyword_n2 OR Keyword_n3 ...) //Dim. n
	);
		

The ER-Soft Product Seeker offers the fields for keywords, based on the user demands. It is extremely simple to use. However it is important that the user understands to use it correctly. The important thing to understand the difference between the:

• Optimistic OR operators

• Restrictive AND operators

• Very Restrictive AND NOT operator

The example illustrates: Four search dimensions, each with three keywords are involved in this formal multidimensional product search example. The user can of course apply the number of search dimensions and keywords as he desire.

The Rules for the use of OR- and AND-operators in other words:

• Use the OR-operator to Expand a Search Dimension with other similar Keywords or synonym Keywords that are logically related. Please note that the use keywords that contain other another keyword as sub-string will not expand the search dimension.
  - An example is the expansion with “Devicenet-Slave” if “Devicenet” is already mentioned.
  - The opposite is not the case: If for example “Devicenet-Slave” is mentioned, adding “Devicenet” will expand the search dimension.

• Use the AND-operator to Restrict to the Intersection of Search Dimensions. Note that it might easily be possible to construct Multi-Dimensional Product Searches with two or more keywords that have nothing in common. In such cases the Product Search Result set will be empty.

• Use the AND-NOT-operator to further restrict the Multi-Dimensional Product Search to NOT include products containing any of the Keywords selected in this dimension.

Real-World Examples:

Conclusion

At this point the reader shall start to get the feeling that we are explaining an extremely powerful search concept with direct Internet Interface where search criterias and results can easily shared between users over the Internet.

There is one important thing to mention:

Remember that the valid Keywords to use are offered by ER-Soft Product Seeker as “Auto-Completion” of words. The user cannot use keywords that are not defined as keywords in the ER-Soft Product Seeker.

About the ER-Soft Product Seeker concept

The search machine behind the ER-Soft Product Seeker can be applied for any kind of information search even when only a part of the information scope of is known. The Keyword set can be maintained, extended and reduced as required. This is one of the major benefits of the ER-Soft Product Seeker concept.