Easy-to-Use Software for Planning and Scheduling

The Automated Planning and Scheduling Environment (ASPEN) version 2 computer program comprises a modular, reconfigurable software framework and collection of software components that can be used for automated planning and scheduling in a variety of applications. ASPEN can automatically generate schedules pursuant to high-level goals specified by the user. ASPEN can also provide automated assistance, with human intervention, in the correction of previously generated faulty schedules. The primary advantages of ASPEN are simplicity and ease of use. Features include a heuristic specification language to provide guidance for the automatic-scheduling software components, an external function interface that facilitates integration with other software, and a graphical user interface for viewing and manipulating schedules. ASPEN was written in C++ for execution on a Sun Workstation running Solaris 2.5-2.6 with at least 32MB of random-access memory and 1GB of disk storage. The Objectspace STL Library and Java Runtime Environment are necessary for execution. The graphical user interface (GUI) can also be run on a PC with the Java Runtime Environment.