OPTIMAL SCHEDULING USING CONSTRAINT LOGIC PROGRAMMING

In this paper a methodology to solve scheduling applications (e.g. job-shop) using constraint logic programming (CLP) is presented. Firstly, the CLP problem definition is briefly described. Secondly, a new strategy for finding optimal solution is presented. New strategy consists of three steps. (1) A heuristic capable to find an initial solution of good quality very quickly (upper bound). (2) A heuristic to find a good lower for optimisation. (3) An effective strategy for finding the optimal solution within a minimal number of steps. The results achieved using this methodology on a set of randomly generated job-shop problems are presented