Back to school

My recent interview with a user who is responsible for day-to-day planning has excited me. For the last few years, I had spent time on reading research papers about planning, plan/constraint optimisation, and somehow they tired me. I did not see a clear picture of how theory could be used. Until the interview for requirement gathering has triggered my enthusiasm. The user, actually the whole department, is suffering from the complicated day-to-day planning for the manufacturing. There are a lot of conditions involved in the decision, eg available manpower, machines, and urgent priority jobs, etc.

Planning algorithm may not be the decision maker, but it can be the best friend to recommend the plausible plans for the day. Generating a few plans with score-based evaluation to present to the user and let the user decide on which plan to take.

I find it's amazingly challenging and that was for the first time after a few years I feel like to come back to continue on my research.