Dynamic scheduling.

摘要

This invention provides a new production scheduling system. The system includes a technique that utilizes a knowledge base system to dynamically schedule production of parts on a plurality of manufacturing machines. The schedule is updated dynamically to conserve synergism with the changing environment. The schedule is created to conform with predefined rules to conserve constraints imposed by the machinery to create parts of different specifications. The rules may be hard in that they may be specifiable in mathematical terms or they may be heuristic and soft in that they may be allowed to be relaxed as determined by operators who have learned from experience with the production machinery. Finally, the invention allows interactive monitoring and adjustment of the schedule by an operator including selective seeding of the schedule.