Leveraging Uncertainty in Design to Criteria Scheduling

Design to Criteria scheduling is the process of custom building a schedule to meet dynamic client goal criteria using a task model that describes alternate ways to achieve tasks and sub tasks Formerly Design to Criteria scheduling relied on simple expected value characterizations of method outcomes The recent addition of uncertainty to the task model and its ubiquitous application in Design to Criteria scheduling has greatly improved four aspects of the scheduling process modeling of tasks and task interactions evaluation of schedules and schedule approxi mations focusing of scheduling activities on more certain schedules when uncertainty reduction is important to the client and construction of schedules that have more certainty and perhaps employ multiple ways to achieve a particular task to improve certainty We describe the uncer tainty representation and how it improves task models and the scheduling process and provide empirical examples of uncertainty reduction in action This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No IRI the Department of the Navy O ce of the Chief of Naval Research under Grant No N and via a subcontract from Boeing Helicopter which is being supported by DARPA under the RaDEO program contract number NANB H The content of the information does not necessarily re ect the position or the policy of the Government National Science Foundation or Boeing Helicopter and no o cial endorsement should be inferred