David W. Hildum

A Blackboard Architecture for Integrating Process Planning and Production Scheduling

As companies attempt to increase customization levels in their product offerings, move toward smaller lot production, and experi ment with more flexible customer/supplier arrangements such as those made possible by electronic data interchange (EDI), they increas ingly require the ability to (1) respond quickly, accurately, and competitively to customer requests for bids on new or modified products and (2) efficiently work out supplier/subcontractor arrangements for these products This in turn requires the ability to (1) rapidly convert standard-based product specifications into process plans and (2) quickly integrate process plans for new orders into the existing production schedule to best accommodate the current state of the manufacturing enterprise