On-line planning and scheduling for high-speed manufacturing

• Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-05)

We describe a real manufacturing problem that lies between shop scheduling and temporal planning. The setting is on-line in the sense that additional jobs arrive asynchronously, perhaps several per second, while plans for previous jobs are being executed. While challenging, the domain is also forgiving: feasible schedules can be found quickly, sub-optimal plans are acceptable, and plan execution is relatively reliable. We present a hybrid algorithm for this problem that combines techniques from partial-order scheduling and state-space planning. Our current implementation successfully controls two prototype plants. By integrating planning and scheduling, we enable high productivity even for complex plants.

citation

Ruml, W. ; Do, M. B. ; Fromherz, M. P. J. On-line planning and scheduling for high-speed manufacturing. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-05); 2005 June 5-10; Monterey; CA. (Best Application Paper Award)