Manufacturing or service system allocating resources to associated

Abstract

An improved method and system is described for allocating manufacturing or process resources having multiple constraints thereon to meet various time varying manufacturing or service demands having multiple parameter requirements. The demand requirements are expressed as a multi-dimensional time ordered array of vertices D.sub.q [t,r,j], for each demand q, wherein t is time and r identifies the physical requirements associated with the q.sup.th demand and j is an integer index running from 1 to J wherein J is the total number of times wherein r has differing values. The available resources are expressed as a multi-dimensional time ordered array of resource vertices R.sub.p [t,c,i] for each resource p, where c expresses the physical capacities associted with the p.sup.th resource, t is time and i is an integer index running from 1 to I where I is the total number of times wherein c has differing values. A logical system is provided for comparing R.sub.p and D.sub.q to determine when and how D.sub.q may be accommodated by R.sub.p. The invented arrangement provides very compact representation of the demand and resource information so that very complex processes and products may be modeled and scheduled with great time precision without requiring large amounts of memory. The invented arrangement can provide scheduling accuracy of one second over a scheduling interval of a century even with a modest size computer.