ESOM: An expert system for multicriteria scheduling

摘要

There exist situations in operations scheduling where the parameters of the scheduling decision are nonquantifiable, or appear as nonnumerical entries in a database. Scheduling techniques based on numerical algorithms may be difficult to use in such situations. In many service industries, the nonnumerical character arises from constraints or preference parameters associated with service tasks, service agents, and the business operation itself. The agent to task assignment problem is one of satisfying multiple objectives, by taking into account the various constraints and preferences inherent in such problems. In this paper, we describe the development of an expert system prototype called ESOM, that aims to automate the assignment decision process of a childcare referral agency. We discuss some key research issues pertaining to service scheduling in general, and to the childcare assignment problem in particular. ESOM provides useful guidelines to future researchers and practitioners interested in building expert systems for service scheduling. We demonstrate assignments made by our prototype through an application scenario.