A symbiotic DSS for production planning and scheduling: issues and approaches

The development of a symbiotic decision support system (S/DSS) for production planning and scheduling in a steel mill is described. In this application, the core analysis tool is a commercially developed production planning and scheduling system using a mathematical model and a variety of heuristics and optimization routines. The S/DSS is used to support a user working with this model. The S/DSS observes the user´s use of the scheduling system. Based on interfaces from the user´s use, the S/DSS does independent analyses using a second copy of the scheduling system. Using both the results of the user´s work on the scheduling task and its own explorations, the S/DSS provides advice to the user. One critical issue in the design of S/DSS to perform this task is the logic of the computer-directed process manager. Underlying this logic are several theoretical issues. The authors discuss these issues and the approaches used to resolving them