Metaplanning in FMS scheduling

The authors present an object-oriented system for scheduling in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with the purpose of demonstrating how the control aspects of such a system can be enhanced by using metalevel planning. Both the objects and the metaknowledge of the system are represented using an object-oriented approach. The resulting system gives a clear, complete and comprehensive picture of the FMS environment, as well as a modular, flexible and interactive control mechanism to generate and maintain detailed FMS production schedules.