Computer system including means for decision support scheduling

Abstract

A demand driven pull-through computerized decision support scheduling system-- The Cube System-- employing a CUBEBOOKING Program operating in near real time to load Jobs (a sequence of predefined process) in CubeCells at a Workspace in Time defined in a selected Cube World in response to demand placed on the Cube World by a customer order, which program allocates the best available resources to produce products (Product Resources) composed of materials (Material Resources on a Positive Bill of Materials) having Features (contained in a Negative Bill of Materials). The Cube System operates to keep track of alternate probable process paths by scoring systems and retains resource usage production history patterns as Prime Data to resolve conflicts between capacity-limited resources (Resource Contentions). The CUBEVIEW Program provides three dimensional representations of Demand and Supply of Resources (displayed on the z axis) at Workspaces (displayed on the y axis) in Time (displayed on the x axis) by a series of Cube Views, and displays Resource contentions, the presence of which requires user intervention to rotate the cube display to examine the z, y axis (Resources, z, on the horizontal axis; Workspaces y, again on the vertical axis, at time=0, a given Time Cell) for contentions. Using the view the system recommends alternative reallocation of Resources to other Workspaces to eliminate Resource Contentions in the various Cube Cells.