On-line planning and scheduling for high-speed manufacturing
Wheeler Ruml, B. Minh, Markus P. J. Fromherz · 2005
We describe a real manufacturing problem that lies between job shop scheduling and temporal planning. The setting is on-line in the sense that new jobs arrive asynchronously, perhaps several per second, while plans for previous jobs are being executed. We formalize the problem as a variant of STRIPS extended with action durations and resources. We present a hybrid algorithm for this problem that combines techniques from partial-order scheduling and state-space planning. No domain-specic search control is used. Our current imple-mentation successfully controls two prototype plants and our technology is anticipated to enable a new line of products. By integrating planning and scheduling, we enable high produc-tivity even for complex plants.