Toward Dynamic Scheduling of Manufacturing Ana Almeida*, Carlos Ramos*, Silvio do Carmo Silva* * Institute Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Dept. de Engenharia Informatica Rua Dr. AntönioBernardino de Almeida, 431, 4200-072 Porto-Portugal Phone: +351 - 228340500; Fax: +351 - 228321159 Email: {ana. csr}(a),dei. isep. ipp.pt t Universidade do Minho, Dept. de Produqäo e Sistemas 4710-057, Braga - Portugal Phone: +351 - 253604100 Fax:+351- 253604456 Email: scarmo(a),dps. uminho.pt ABSTRACT To know what work to do at each moment in time and which resources to use is a central need to every company. The answer to this lies in good scheduling, which strongly contributes to the success of a company's manufacturing operations. In this paper we argue that the nature of scheduling is essentially dynamic, i.e. in practice it must be done on a continuous basis. To carry out dynamic scheduling satisfactorily, a powerful system to aid schedulers to take good decisions must be provided, i.e. a Scheduling Decision Support System (SDSS). This paper describes one such system that integrates a new method for the dynamic scheduling of manufacturing. Keywords: Dynamic Scheduling, Decision Support System, Manufacturing Orders, Scheduling Behaviour and Agenda. INTRODUCTION Scheduling means solving two problems, namely that of allocation of resources to each task and that of determining the moment when each task will be performed, IM. Real life scheduling problems tend to be so complex that, usually, optimal solutions can"-; : -c found. According to 121 "...common sense is the best way to scheduling when there is a complex scenery". What seems really useful is a tool for supporting decisions to help operators to achieve and contribute to good scheduling. Such a tool must have the capability of leading to good solutions in a short time. For this, scheduling DSS systems with the involvement of the operator can be most adequate. This stems from the fact that once a solution is obtained by some method, it can, most likely, be improved through a DSS for scheduling. In fact, the information provided by the DSS added to the user knowledge about the behaviour of the manufacturing systems operation and experience in scheduling can be included in the search procedure for good scheduling decisions. Human and computer intelligence combine to solve the scheduling problem /3/. The human handles the unstructured part of a scheduling problem and the computer supports the human for the more structured parts of the problem. Some authors (e.g. /4/, 151,161 and 111) suggest that, in areas where the DSS approach has been applied to scheduling, the results are much better when compared with those obtained from other conventional methodologies. In this work, a Decision Support System architecture, together with a system for the scheduling of manufacturing orders, are proposed, to be used in an integrated manner for dynamic, inter-active and iterative scheduling. 169 Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 2:52 AM