METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CREATING ADAPTIVE WORKFLOWS

摘要

A scheduling engine and an associated workflow engine may be configured to build workflows that describe sequences of tasks to be performed in a dynamically changing environment. The workflow engine may be configured to monitor the execution of the tasks within the environment and to provide the scheduling engine with information regarding deviations of task executions from the workflows. When such deviations are detected, the workflow engine may trigger the scheduling engine to rebuild the workflows for as yet uncompleted tasks. The scheduling engine may receive the information regarding the deviations via a declarative model of the physical environment. In general, the tasks may be a set of job requests to be processed in a manufacturing environment (e.g., a print shop). Also, the scheduling engine may be made up of an aggregate planner and a detailed scheduler. Aggregate plans for the jobs may be first made for the jobs and then passed to the detailed scheduler for timelining, etc. Building the aggregate plans may be accomplished by selecting a subset of the job requests according to a procedure for packing bins representing the resources of the manufacturing plant.