METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR CONSTRUCTING PRODUCTION PLANS

• US 20100010845A1
• Filed: 07/10/2008
• Published: 01/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Price, Robert, Do, Minh Binh, Zhou, Rong, Kuhn, Lukas D., de Kleer, Johan
• Granted Patent: US 8,219,437 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06313 Resource planning in a project environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/04 Manufacturing
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/30 Computing systems specially adapted for manufacturing
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

Systems and methods are presented for constructing production plans to achieve one or more production goals, in which a diagnosis engine determines the production plant condition based on a previously executed plan, observations from the plant, and a plant model, and formulates a heuristic based on a diagnostic objective, and with a planner to performing a partial-plan search using the heuristic to construct the plans that will concurrently achieve at least one production goal and facilitate the diagnostic objective.

Claims

1. A system for constructing plans for operating a production plant to achieve one or more production goals, the system comprising:

a diagnosis engine operative to determine a current plant condition based at least partially on a previously executed plan, at least one corresponding observation from the plant, and a model of the plant, and to formulate a heuristic based on at least one diagnostic objective; and

a planner operatively coupled with the diagnosis engine to perform a partial-plan search using the heuristic to construct the plans for execution in the plant that will concurrently achieve at least one production goal and facilitate the at least one diagnostic objective.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the diagnosis engine is operative to calculate plan fault probabilities based on action failure probabilities at least partially according to the current plant condition, to generate information gain criterion for plans based at least partially on the current plant condition, and to formulate the heuristic based at least partially on the plan fault probabilities and the information gain criterion.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the diagnosis engine is operative to derive failure probabilities for a plurality of fault hypothesis in the plant in formulating the heuristic based at least partially on the current system condition.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the diagnosis engine is operative to formulate the heuristic as a lower and upper plan failure probability bounding heuristic based at least partially on the current system condition.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the planner is operative to perform search space pruning to speed up the partial-plan search in constructing the plans.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the planner is operative to evaluate partial plans according to the heuristic to preferentially construct informative plans based on the at least one diagnostic objective.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the planner is operative to selectively construct plans with a failure probability closest to a target value T.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the diagnosis engine is operative to formulate the heuristic as a lower and upper plan failure probability bounding heuristic based at least partially on the current system condition.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the planner is operative to perform search space pruning to speed up the partial-plan search in constructing the plans.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the planner is operative to evaluate partial plans according to the heuristic to preferentially construct informative plans based on the at least one diagnostic objective.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the planner is operative to selectively construct plans with a failure probability closest to a target value T.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the planner is operative to evaluate partial plans according to the heuristic to preferentially construct informative plans based on the at least one diagnostic objective.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the planner performs an A* partial-plan search using the heuristic to construct the plans.

14. A method of constructing plans for operating a production plant to achieve one or more production goals, the method comprising:

determining a current plant condition based at least partially on a previously executed plan, at least one corresponding observation from the plant, and a model of the plant;

formulating a heuristic based on at least one diagnostic objective;

performing a partial-plan search using the heuristic; and

constructing plans for execution in the plant that will concurrently achieve at least one production goal and facilitate the at least one diagnostic objective based on the partial-plan search.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

calculating plan fault probabilities based on action failure probabilities at least partially according to the current plant condition;

generating information gain criterion for plans based at least partially on the current plant condition; and

formulating the heuristic based at least partially on the plan fault probabilities and the information gain criterion.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein formulating the heuristic comprises deriving failure probabilities for a plurality of fault hypothesis in the plant based at least partially on the current system condition.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the heuristic is formulated as a lower and upper plan failure probability bounding heuristic.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising performing search space pruning to speed up the partial-plan search in constructing the plans.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein performing the partial-plan search comprises evaluating partial plans according to the heuristic to preferentially construct informative plans based on the at least one diagnostic objective.

20. A computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing the steps of:

determining a current plant condition based at least partially on a previously executed plan, at least one corresponding observation from the plant, and a model of the plant;

formulating a heuristic based on at least one diagnostic objective;

performing a partial-plan search using the heuristic; and

constructing plans for execution in the plant that will concurrently achieve at least one production goal and facilitate the at least one diagnostic objective based on the partial-plan search.