Support for Creating Robust Plans and Schedules

Creation of plans and schedules for systems with random phenomena is a research area that is gaining considerable attention. Standard techniques of scheduling and exact methods cannot be utilised for stochastic systems. The measure of robustness is an important indicator of the schedule, representing the resistance of the schedule to random phenomena that occur during the execution of the schedule. This thesis describes the procedure for evaluating the robustness of the schedules. A complete methodology for creating of robust schedules, based on the use of computer simulation, is presented. Three distinct procedures for increasing the robustness (by changing a plan, increasing of time reserves and by changing the order of allocation of resources) are explained in detail. A new method for changing the order of resource allocation to the activities has been developed. Proposed method provides the possibility to identify the order of allocation that will lead to a system deadlock. The procedures were tested using simulation model of an existing container terminal.