Agent-Based Cooperative Scheduling

Cooperative scheduling is concerned with integrating
multiple problem-solving perspectives or objectives when
generating solutions to a scheduling problem. Cooperation may
involve interactions between humans,, between scheduling
agents, or between humans and agents. The purpose of this
paper is to focus on the later two types of cooperation iwhich a
team of software-based asynchronous agents play a major role in
identifying candidate scheduling alternatives. This so-called ATeam architecture is at the heart of a set of decision-support
tools that employ cooperative scheduling techniques for
scheduling the operations of real-world paper manufacturing
facilities. The IBM Paper Mill Scheduling System was
developed at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center over the past
couple of years and is currently being sold world-wi