MCMR: a multiple rule firing production system model

The performance of production programs can be improved by firing multiple rules in a production cycle. Although considerable amount of research has been done on parallel processing of production programs, the problem of multiple rule firing has not been thoroughly investigated yet. The authors begin by identifying the problems associated with multiple rule firing systems: the compatibility problem and the convergence problem. They then present the multiple-contexts-multiple-rules (MCMR) model which addresses these two problems. A production program executed under the MCMR is guaranteed to reach a solution which is equivalent to the sequential execution. The MCMR model has been simulated on the RUBIC simulator, and speedups of 3.18 to 20.38-folds over sequential execution have been obtained