Online supervised learning approach for machine scheduling

Abstract

Due to rapid growth of computational power and demand for faster and more optimal solution in today's manufacturing, machine learning has lately caught a lot of attention. Thanks to it's ability to adapt to changing conditions in dynamic environments it is perfect choice for processes where rules cannot be explicitly given. In this paper proposes on-line supervised learning approach for optimal scheduling in manufacturing. Although supervised learning is generally not recommended for dynamic problems we try to defeat this conviction and prove it's viable option for this class of problems. Implemented in multi-agent system algorithm is tested against multi-stage, multi-product flow-shop problem. More specifically we start from defining considered problem. Next we move to presentation of proposed solution. Later on we show results from conducted experiments and compare our approach to centralized reinforcement learning to measure algorithm performance.