PIPES - A HEURISTIC-SEARCH MODEL FOR PIPELINE SCHEDULE GENERATION

Resource scheduling problems are increasingly being solved using Al te chniques. Solving real-life versions of these problems demands the abi lity to model a range of constraints and, at the same time, to be flex ible enough to make revisions to these constraints. In this paper, we outline the pipeline schedule generation problem, where the task is to generate a pumping schedule for a single-source multiple-destinations oil pipeline carrying multiple products. The schedule must take into account product availability and requirements while satisfying a wide variety of domain constraints, including tankage constraints, product sequencing constraints, quality control constraints, delivery constrai nts, etc. We describe an approach based on heuristic search, which we have adopted for solving it. The system has been successfully implemen ted and is in use. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.