Research

my research activities are in two areas: intelligent scheduling and adaptive computing. Research in Intelligent Scheduling has a long tradition since 1987. Thus most of this page is about scheduling.

Publications

My publications can be found here. The list of student projects is here. 

Adaptive computing/ intelligent IT service management

Adaptive computing is a new area of research but has some commons with the other one. Adaptive computing deals with the optimal/ intelligent management of IT services (e.g. large application systems or computer centers). Here topics like intelligent monitoring and control of virtual systems are investigated.

Intelligent Scheduling

within this area my research focuses on intelligent scheduling within supply chains (multi-site scheduling) including the modeling of different scheduling problems, the solving of scheduling problems using AI methods and the development of software systems including graphical user-interfaces for scheduling applications. Application areas are production, transport, projects, staff scheduling and others.

The German research is centered in the special interest group on planning/ scheduling and configuration/ design within the GI. I am the speaker of this SIG. 

Additional information in German can be found here.

Projects

• COSS (2006 - ): On the basis of the results from the MUST and AMPA project cooperating scheduling systems are investigated. This includes agent based cooperation in multi-site scheduling environments (e.g. supply chains) as well as specific scheduling approaches in specific scheduling domains within the supply chain.
  
  
• PEP (2003 - ): The main goal of this project is the development and comparison of scheduling approaches for workforce scheduling mainly in retail and medical services.
  
• AMPA (1998 - 2002): Within AMPA (Agent-based Multi-Site Planning and Scheduling Application Framework) an agent-based platform-independent system for scheduling tasks within a distributed supply chain architecture (including production, transport, storage) was developed.
   
• SSWB (1994 - 2001): The Scheduling Systems Workbench (SSWB) intends to support the development of scheduling systems. It combines software engineering knowledge with specific knowledge about building scheduling systems to provide a toolbox for building scheduling systems.
   
• MUST (1994 - 2002): The MUST (Multi-Site Scheduling System) project dealt with the problem of coordinating distributed scheduling systems to reach some global goals. The system combines global and local scheduling activities on several scheduling layers. Predictive as well as reactive scheduling is possible.
   
• MARTIN (1993 -1998): In the MARTIN project an multi-agent system was developed that supports reactive scheduling.
   
• GAP (1992 - 1996): GAP combines Genetic Algorithms and Constraint Programming to support the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. Scheduling is one of the possible application areas.
   
• META-PLAN (1990 - 1992): In META-PLAN so called meta-knowledge about scheduling is used to describe (using a language called HERA: heuristics for representation of scheduling knowledge) and select scheduling strategies.
   
• MEDICUS (1990 - 1993): MEDICUS is a scheduling system to be used in the heart surgery of a hospital. It supports scheduling of operation theaters and care sections.
   
• PSY/ REAKTION (1989 - 1991): The system PSY supports the scheduling personal in discrete manufacturing processes of a fittings company. It focuses on predictive scheduling. The system REAKTION focuses on reactive scheduling and realizes a manual or automatic rescheduling due to typical disturbances in the production.
   
• PROTOS (1988 - 1993): Within the EUREKA-Projekts PROTOS a knowledge-based system for scheduling process orientied production in the chemical industry was developed.