JP2731079B2 - Schedule creation device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention utilizes an electronic computer.
Te, automatically assigns a scheduling instrumentation performed under certain constraints between the plurality of jobs and a plurality of resources
The present invention particularly relates to a means for accelerating schedule creation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art To perform assignment between a plurality of jobs and a plurality of resources under certain constraints, for example,
Create production schedules for factories, create train schedules, create work schedules for workers in shift work,
This is a work that is routinely performed in a variety of fields, such as dispatching and creating a delivery plan.

[0003] Conventionally, such assignment work has been carried out exclusively by hand using expert know-how.
In recent years, automation by machines has been actively promoted due to the development of computer technology.

As methods of automation, there are an approach based on mathematical programming and a knowledge engineering approach. The former is effective only when the format of the constraint condition is established, such as when the constraint condition can be described by an equation or an inequality. However, in a practical problem, it is often the case that a constraint cannot be described unless a more complicated format is used. Therefore, the heuristic method based on the latter approach is more applicable. As a known example related to this, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-163669 describes a method of allocating jobs starting from jobs having strict constraints.

[0005]

As a knowledge engineering approach to the schedule creation problem, the following processing procedure has been generally adopted. (1) A plurality of jobs are expressed as frames serving as a schedule unit, ordered and stored. (2) Take out the top frame. (3) One resource is extracted from a plurality of resources. (4) Check whether the extracted resource satisfies the allocation constraint. (A) If they match, the assignment for the frame is determined. (B) If not, the next resource is taken out and the constraint condition is checked. (C) When there are no more resources to be taken out, the processing of the previously processed frame is canceled and the processing is resumed from the processing of (3) (backtrack processing). (5) Returning to (2), the next frame is allocated. (6) The processes from (2) to (5) are repeated until there are no more unassigned frames.

The method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-163669 is also a schedule creation method based on the above procedure, and the number of resources that can be allocated to each job is used as an index indicating the degree of severity. The job is assigned, and the job is assigned from the job having the smaller value. However, although this method considers the order of allocation, heuristics are not added for checking constraint conditions, and there is a problem that processing of this part is not efficient.

In general, in the case of constraint conditions, the check contents are often duplicated among a plurality of conditions for ease of description and the like. Therefore, the procedure for checking the constraint conditions greatly affects the efficiency of schedule creation. is there. In order to create an efficient schedule, it is necessary to efficiently check the constraint conditions by utilizing an intermediate result of the constraint condition check and the like.

An object of the present invention is to provide a schedule using an electronic computer.
In a device that automatically creates a module, a schedule creation is speeded up by omitting or degenerating unnecessary constraint checking by utilizing the relationship between a constraint check intermediate result and a constraint. It is in.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, a schedule creation device according to the present invention comprises a first constraint condition.
Is the source constraint and the second constraint is the destination constraint.
Then, when the first constraint is satisfied, the second constraint is checked.
Constraint that defines that the check can be omitted or degenerated
Related information storage means that stores check related information between cases
And, for the checked constraints, their related
Information and check related information (check omission information)
Check omission information storage means and
Prior to checking constraints on resources and resources,
The restriction condition is registered in the check omission information storage means.
Check if it is registered, and skip the check if it is registered
Omit or reduce the constraint check according to the information
And if it is not registered, the
The check is executed as it is and the checked constraint
Cases are stored in the related information storage means as related source constraints
Is checked, and if stored, the relevant
Related constraints for the case and its check related information (check
Check omission information) in the check omission information storage means.
Recording means for checking constraint conditions
You.

[0010]

According to the present invention, for example, when the following relations exist between the constraints a and b, the relations between the constraints a and b are checked.
It is stored as continuous information (check omission information) . (1) When the constraint condition a has been checked, the constraint condition b need not be checked (can be omitted). (2) When the constraint condition a has already been checked, the constraint condition b can be replaced by a simpler constraint condition c check ( reducible ).

When a schedule is created, constraint conditions are checked in the following procedure. (A) Select one constraint condition to be checked. (B) if the check for the selected constraint checking omitted information that it is possible or possible degeneracy omitted is stored executes <br/> omitted or degenerate check. (C) In the case where the checked constraints, including the case where the constraints are omitted or reduced and executed , have the check related information between the constraints as in the above (1) and (2), they correspond to the related destination. storing information indicating the check constraints is possible or degenerate <br/> optional as the check omitted information. (D) The steps (a) to (c) are repeated until an unsatisfied constraint appears or there are no constraints to be checked.

By using the present invention, unnecessary check processing can be reduced in checking constraints when creating a schedule, and the processing time for creating a schedule can be shortened.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the present invention.Schedule creation deviceOne
It is a block diagram of an example.This schedule creation device
Is a job storage device 1, a resource storage device 2,
Storage device 3, related information storage device 4, job selection device 5,
Resource selection device 6, allocation determination device 7, and allocation
And a status storage device 8. Assignment determination device 7
Is a constraint condition check unit 71 and check omission information
It consists of a memory 72.

The job storage device 1 stores information on each job as shown in FIG. For example, as the job number 1, information such as job name A, work time is the morning of the day, two workers, work content B is B, location is A, and the like are stored.

The resource storage device 2 stores information on each resource as shown in FIG. For example, as resource number 1, information such as resource name A, qualification class B, possible operations A, B, and D, time conditions are not particularly specified, and location conditions A, E, and F are stored. .

The constraint condition storage device 3 stores information defining the relationship between jobs and resources as shown in FIG. For example, as the constraint condition number 1, information such as the content "Work B requires at least one person of qualification A" is stored.

The related information storage device 4 stores information (check related information) indicating the relationship between the constraint conditions as shown in FIG. For example, as the related information number 1, the related source constraint number (ID) 1, the related destination constraint number 2, the check
Click related content "omit the check", information such as stored. This means that when the constraint condition of the constraint condition number 1 has been checked, the constraint condition of the constraint condition number 2 need not be checked. Similarly, related information number 2 indicates that when the constraint condition of constraint condition number 2 has been checked,
With regard to the constraint condition No. 5, only the existence of a person who can perform the work C needs to be checked (that is, it is necessary to reduce
What to do) .

In the job selection device 5, the job storage device 1
, The respective jobs are developed in the form of a frame as a schedule unit, the selection order of the frames is determined, and the frames are selected one by one.

The resource selecting device 6 reads the resources from the resource storage device 2, expands each resource into a format of a resource unit to be assigned to a frame, determines a selection order of the resource units, and selects the resource units one by one. I do.

In the assignment determining device 7, first, the constraint condition checking section 71 stores the constraint conditions to be satisfied by the job (frame) selected by the job selecting device 5 and the resource selecting device 6 and the resource (resource unit). It is taken out of the device 3 and checked. Then, the checked constraints are stored in the related information storage device 4.
, And if there is related information having the constraint condition as an association source, information indicating that it is possible to omit or reduce (reduce) checking of the constraint condition of the associated destination using the information (check omission information ) Is stored in the check skip information storage unit 72.
(Register) . FIG. 6 shows a specific example of the check omission information storage section 72. For example, as the job number 6, the omissible constraint condition number 2, the omission contents "omit check",
And other information are stored. This information is referred to when checking subsequent constraints, when the constraint condition is subject to the check omission information is used to perform by omitting or degenerate the check. As a result of checking the constraint conditions, if all the applicable constraint conditions are satisfied, the assignment determining device 7 determines the assignment of the job and the resource and stores the job and the resource in the assignment status storage device 8. If even one of the applicable constraints is not satisfied, another assignment is examined, and an assignment that satisfies all applicable constraints is searched. When the assignment has been made to all the jobs in this way, the schedule creation ends.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a constraint condition checking process in the constraint condition checking section 71 of the assignment determining device 7.

The constraint checking section 71 of the assignment determining device 7 first extracts all the constraints to be satisfied with respect to the job (frame) and resource to be assigned at present (step 701). Then, it is checked whether there is an unchecked constraint (step 702). If there is an unchecked constraint (YE in step 702)
S), one of them is selected (step 703).
If there are no unchecked constraints (N in step 702)
O) Since all the constraint conditions to be satisfied at that time are satisfied, the check processing ends. Initially, all constraints are unchecked, one of which is selected.

For the selected unchecked constraint condition, the check skip information storage unit 72 is referred to by using the job number of the job to be currently assigned as a key (step 704), and the constraint condition is omitted or reduced. It is checked whether (reduction) is possible (step 705). Then, the constraint condition is omitted or the check is omitted according to the check omission information stored in the check omission information storage unit 72.
When degeneration (reduction) is possible (YE in step 705 )
In step S), it is assumed that the constraint is satisfied by omitting the check, or the check is changed to a simpler check (step 70).
6). On the other hand, if it is impossible to omit or reduce (reduce) the check (NO in step 705), the constraint condition is checked as it is (step 707).

As a result of the check, if the constraint condition is satisfied (YES in step 708), the related information storage device 4 is referred to (step 709). Therefore, if there is a constraint condition number of the related destination having the checked constraint condition as the related source and information of related contents ( check related information) (YES in step 710), the constraint condition number of the related destination can be omitted. Check omitting information that omits the condition number and related contents is created and stored in the check omitting information storage section 72 together with the job number (step 71).
1) Return to determination of unchecked constraint condition (step 702) in order to check the next constraint condition. If there is no corresponding check related information in the related information storage device 4 (NO in step 710), the process returns to the determination of the unchecked constraint (step 702).

If the constraints are not satisfied as a result of the check (NO in step 708), all the constraints to be satisfied at that time cannot be satisfied, and the check processing ends. In this case, another assignment will be considered, but the explanation is omitted because it is not directly related to the present invention.

In the flowchart of FIG. 7, when the constraint condition check is omitted, the process immediately returns to the determination of the next unchecked constraint condition (path from step 705 to step 702). In the case where the information is related in a chain, the processing of steps 709 to 711 may be performed even when omitted.

[0028]

As apparent from the foregoing description, according to the present invention, automatic creation instrumentation schedule performed according constraints allocation between a plurality of jobs and a plurality of resources
In location, omitted or degenerate checking redundant constraints based on the context of the checks already carried constraint
(Reduction), it is possible to increase the processing efficiency at the time of the constraint condition check, and it is possible to shorten the processing time for creating the schedule.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a schedule creation device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of a job in a job storage device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of resources of a resource storage device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of a constraint condition of a constraint condition storage device.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a specific example of inter-restriction condition related information in a related information storage device.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of check omission information in a check omission information storage unit.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a processing procedure of a constraint condition check in a constraint condition check unit of the assignment determination device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Job storage device 2 Resource storage device 3 Constraint condition storage device 4 Related information storage device 5 Job selection device 6 Resource selection device 7 Allocation determination device 71 Constraint condition check unit 72 Check skip information storage unit 8 Allocation status storage device

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] A plurality of job storage units for storing job-related information; a job storage unit for storing job-related information; a resource storage unit for storing resource-related information; An apparatus for automatically allocating a job and a plurality of resources in accordance with constraints and automatically creating a schedule, wherein a first constraint is defined as a source constraint and a second constraint is defined as a destination constraint. If the first constraint is satisfied, the second
Related information storage means that stores check related information between constraints that can omit or degenerate checks on constraint conditions, and related constraint conditions and check related information (hereinafter, check Check omission information storage means for registering the abbreviated information), and prior to checking constraint conditions relating to the job and resource to be allocated, check whether the constraint conditions are registered in the check omission information storage means, and register the information. If the constraint is not registered, the check of the constraint is executed according to the check omission information. If the constraint is not registered, the check of the constraint is executed as it is. Check whether the information is stored in the related information storage means. Associated destination constraints on the original constraint and the check related information scheduling apparatus characterized by having a constraint checking means for registering (check omitted information) to the check omission information storing means.