The talk is devoted to techniques of applying constraint satisfaction
technology to solve complex and dynamic scheduling problems. First, we argue
for a more tighten integration of planning and scheduling, some examples
from real-life manufacturing problems are given. A short introduction to
constraint satisfaction technology, which can be used to solve such
problems, follows. The main part of the talk is divided into two components.
First, we describe techniques developed to model and solve complex
scheduling problems in manufacturing with emphasis to resources with
transition schemes and arbitrary resource dependencies. These techniques are
used in the advanced planning and scheduling system Visopt ShopFloor.
Second, we describe a new approach to dynamic constraint satisfaction
problems where the number of changes in the solution should be kept minimal
after changes in the problem - a so called minimal perturbation problem
(MPP). Ideas of a solving algorithm for MPP are sketched and preliminary
results in timetabling are presented. The talk is concluded by case studies
from food and pharmaceutical industries.