Case-based reasoning for production scheduling

We will present an information system supporting decision making in the area of production scheduling. The system relies on an interactive approach of problem solving which is known in the area of Artificial Intelligence under the name case-based reasoning. It tries to solve new problems using results from old solved problems. While iterative solution procedures try to tackle problems from scratch, case-based reasoning takes advantage of analogies between cases. We merge case-based reasoning with the theory of scheduling to solve production planning and control problems using an interactive problem solving framework. We demonstrate the implementation of this approach where open problems are matched with well-tried solution strategies and their corresponding cases which are stored in a library of cases. We discuss the pros and cons of the approach.