An intelligent optimal production scheduling approach using constraint-based search and agent-based collaboration

This research introduces an intelligent approach for identifying the optimal production schedule to satisfy product and manufacturing constraints. In this approach, product constraints are modeled using a feature-based product representation scheme. Manufacturing constraints are described as available resources including facilities and persons. Manufacturing requirements for producing the products, including tasks and sequential constraints for conducting these tasks, are represented as part of the product feature descriptions. The optimal production process and its timing parameter values are identi®ed using constraint-based search and agent-based collaboration. The intelligent optimal production scheduling system was implemented using Smalltalk, an object oriented programming language.