Heuristic knowledge representation of production scheduling: An integrated modeling approach

In spite of the efforts to automate production scheduling systems, most manufacturing plants rely on human schedulers for their practical production scheduling due mainly to the complexity and unpredictability of the manufacturing systems. One of the reasons for the difficulties in automating the production scheduling process is the lack of an explicit representation scheme of heuristic scheduling knowledge.

In this paper, an integrated modeling approach is presented to represent the complicated heuristic knowledge in production scheduling systems. The integrated modeling approach is based on object-oriented and event-driven modeling. It provides the explicit, declarative and executable representation of heuristic scheduling knowledge which aids the communication between human schedulers and system analysts. The declarative and executable representation of scheduling knowledge will enhance the flexibility of production scheduling systems and aid the development of production scheduling information systems.

A heuristic production scheduling model of a tire manufacturing system is used throughout the paper to illustrate the concepts and applicability of the approach.