ARACHNE - PLANNING THE TELEPHONE NETWORK AT NYNEX

Arachne provides an excellent example of the success that can be deriv ed from an effective integration of expert systems and optimization te chniques. Automating IOF planning at NYNEX was an extremely challengin g problem involving conflicting constraints: (i) the IOF network plann ing problem is quite complex, and (ii) the size of NYNEX's IOF network is quite large. In Arachne, we resolve these conflicting constraints by decomposing the planning task in such a way that only two types of subtask remain: (i) subtasks in which the size of the data is large, a nd the equipment cost of decisions small, and (ii) subtasks in which t he data size is small and the equipment cost of decisions high. We app ly heuristics to the former types of subtasks and optimization techniq ues to the latter Combining heuristics and optimization techniques in this way provides a very good solution that optimizes the IOF network where capital investment is greatest. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd