Patricia.Mackiewicz@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU.UUCP (04/10/87)
AI SEMINAR TOPIC: Toward An Integrated Framework For Factory Scheduling SPEAKER: Steve Smith, CMU WHEN: Tuesday, April 14, 1987, 3:30 p.m. WHERE: Wean Hall 5409 ABSTRACT: In this talk we present work aimed at providing an integrated framework for coordinating factory production. An integrated framework is defined as one that merges predictive generation/expansion of the production schedule with reactive schedule management in response to the dynamics of factory operation. We describe OPIS, a knowledge-based scheduling system that advocates a common view of predictive and reactive scheduling as an opportunistic problem solving process. This view is realized by a system architecture that combines constraint propagation and consistency maintenance techniques with heuristics for dynamically focusing the scheduler according to characteristics of current solution constraints. A collection of scheduling methods, varying in the decomposition of the problem that is assumed and the types of constraints and objectives that are emphasized, are defined to provide strategic alternatives. We present experimental evidence of the effectiveness of this approach in generating schedules and give examples of its use in reactively revising them as the situation warrants. We then turn attention to the central assumption of an incrementally maintained schedule as the basis for factory floor decision-making and consider its computational implications. Current work directed toward improving the robustness of predictive schedules and hierarchically distributing the scheduling effort is described.