AI-Based Schedulers in Manufacturing Practice: Report of a Panel Discussion

There is a great disparity between the number of papers which have been published about AI-based manufacturing scheduling tools and the number of systems which are in daily use by manufacturing engineers. It is argued that this is not a reflection of inadequate AI technology, but is rather indicative of lack of a systems perspective by AI practitioners and their manufacturing customers. Case studies to support this perspective are presented by Carnegie Group as a builder of scheduling systems for its customers, by Texas Instruments and Intel Corporation as builders of schedulers for their own use, and by Intellection as a consulting house specializing in scheduling problems.