An Integrated Framework for Generating and Revising Factory Schedules

Abstract

Practical solutions to the production scheduling problem must provide two broad capabilities:

i)
an ability to efficiently generate schedules that reflect the actual constraints and objectives of the manufacturing environment, and

ii)
an ability to incrementally revise these schedules over time in response to unexpected executional circumstances. In this paper, we advocate a common view of predictive and reactive scheduling as an incremental problem solving process that is opportunistically focused by characteristics of the current solution constraints.

We describe the architecture of OPIS (opportunistic intelligent scheduler), which defines a general framework for configuring scheduling systems according to this view. We then examine the scheduling knowledge (e.g. analysis and scheduling methods, schedule generation or revision strategies) that is exploited within this architecture by the current OPIS scheduler. Experimental studies with the OPIS scheduler have demonstrated the potential of this constraint-directed scheduling methodology in both predictive and reactive scheduling contexts.