Planning for Manufacturing Workpieces by Storing, Indexing and Replaying Planning Decisions

Planning for manufacturing workpieces is a complex task that requires the interaction of a domain-specific reasoner and a generic planning mechanism. In this paper we present an architecture for organizing the case base that is based on the information provided by a generic problem solver. A retrieval procedure is then presented that uses the information provided by the domain-specific reasoner in order to improve the accuracy of the cases retrieved. However, it is not realistic to suppose that the case retrieved will entirely fit into the new problem. We present a replay procedure to obtain a partial solution that replays not only the valid decisions taken for solving the case, but also justifications of rejected decisions made during the problem solving process. As a result, those completion alternatives of the partial solution are discarded that are already known to be invalid from the case.