Toshiaki Yoshinaga

Development of a scheduling algorithm for resource leveling in local time intervals

A scheduling algorithm has been developed for resource leveling in a plant construction schedule. The algorithm facilitates resource profile smoothing as well as resource peak flattening, through a combination of global leveling with a variance-based performance index and local leveling. The local resource leveling, done after the global leveling, further improves minor fluctuations and local peaks in the resource profile that are insensitive to the variance-based performance index. The local resource leveling is based on two steps: definition of a target resource profile for chosen local time intervals; and heuristic optimization which shifts the resource profile towards the target curve. The scheduling algorithm developed has been experimentally applied to a practical problem of simulating a plant construction schedule with about 5000 tasks. It was confirmed from the numerical results that local resource leveling is a promising way to refine the resource profile after global resource leveling.

A Knowledge-Based Approach to Verification and Improvement of Industrial Plant Layout Design

Recently, knowledge engineering has been applied to CAD Systems [1,2], with the main application fields being LSI and machine design. Some systems for industrial plant design have been proposed. Designing is divided into system design and layout design. In the former, specifications of components and pipes connecting the components are decided. In the latter, their placements are decided. This chapter focuses on layout design.