Skip to main content

Completable Partial Solutions in Constraint Programming and Constraint-Based Scheduling

  • Conference paper
Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2004 (CP 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 3258))

Abstract

The paper introduces the notion of freely completable partial solutions to characterize constraint satisfaction problems that have components which are relatively easy to solve and are only loosely connected to the remaining parts of the problem. Discovering such partial solutions during the solution process can result in strongly pruned search trees. We give a general definition of freely completable partial solutions, and then apply it to resource-constrained project scheduling. In this domain, we suggest a heuristic algorithm that is able to construct freely completable partial schedules. The method – together with symmetry breaking applied before search – has been successfully tested on real-life resource-constrained project scheduling problems containing up to 2000 tasks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Apt, K.R.: Principles of Constraint Programming. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (2003)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Backofen, R., Will, S.: Excluding Symmetries in Constraint-based Search. Constraints 7(3), 333–349 (2002)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Baptiste, P., Le Pape, C.: Constraint Propagation and Decomposition Techniques for Highly Disjunctive and Highly Cumulative Project Scheduling Problems. Constraints 5(1/2), 119–139 (2000)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Baptiste, P., Le Pape, C., Nuijten, W.: Constraint-based Scheduling. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Baptiste, P., Peridy, L., Pinson, E.: A Branch and Bound to Minimize the Number of Late Jobs on a Single Machine with Release Time Constraints. European Journal of Operational Research 144(1), 1–11 (2003)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Beasley, J.E.: The OR-Library, http://www.ms.ic.ac.uk/info.html

  7. Beck, J.C., Fox, M.S.: Dynamic Problem Structure Analysis as a Basis for Constraint-Directed Scheduling Heuristics. Artificial Intelligence 117, 31–81 (2000)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Cesta, A., Oddi, A., Smith, S.F.: Profile-Based Algorithms to Solve Multiple Capacitated Metric Scheduling Problems. In: Proc. of the 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems, pp. 214–223 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Crawford, J., Luks, G., Ginsberg, M., Roy, A.: Symmetry Breaking Predicates for Search Problems. In: Proc. of the 5th Int. Conf. on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, pp. 148–159 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Davis, E., Patterson, J.: A Comparision of Heuristic and Optimum Solutions in Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling. Management Science 21, 944–955 (1975)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Demeulemeester, E.L., Herroelen, W.S.: A Branch-and-bound Procedure for the Multiple Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem. Management Science 38(12), 1803–1818 (1992)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Demeulemeester, E.L., Herroelen, W.S.: Project Scheduling: A Research Handbook. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (2002)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Fahle, T., Schamberger, S., Sellmann, M.: Symmetry Breaking. In: Walsh, T. (ed.) CP 2001. LNCS, vol. 2239, pp. 93–107. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Freuder, E.C.: Synthesizing Constraint Expressions. Communications ACM 21(11), 958–966 (1978)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Gent, I.P., Smith, B.M.: Symmetry Breaking in Constraint Programming. In: Proc. of the 14th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 599–603 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ilog Scheduler 5.1 User’s Manual (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kovács, A.: A Novel Approach to Aggregate Scheduling in Project-Oriented Manufacturing. In: Proc. of the 13th Int. Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, Doctoral Consortium, pp. 63–67 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Laborie, P., Ghallab, M.: Planning with Shareable Resource Constraints. In: Proc. of the 14th Int. Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 1643–1649 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Márkus, A., Váncza, J., Kis, T., Kovács, A.: Project Scheduling Approach to Production Planning. CIRP Annals - Manuf. Techn. 52(1), 359–362 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Tsang, E.: Foundations of Constraint Satisfaction. Academic Press, London (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Váncza, J., Kis, T., Kovács, A.: Aggregation – The Key to Integrating Production Planning and Scheduling. CIRP Annals - Manuf. Techn. 53(1), 377–380 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Kovács, A., Váncza, J. (2004). Completable Partial Solutions in Constraint Programming and Constraint-Based Scheduling. In: Wallace, M. (eds) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2004. CP 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3258. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30201-8_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30201-8_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23241-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30201-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics