SEaM: Analyzing Schedule Executability through Simulation

Increasing attention is being dedicated to the problem of schedule execution management. This has encouraged research focused on the analysis of strategies for the execution of plans in real working environments. To this aim, much work has been recently done to devise scheduling procedures which increase the level of robustness of the produced solutions. Yet, these results represent only the first step in this direction: in order to improve confidence in the theoretical results, it is also necessary to conceive experimental frameworks where the devised measures may find confirmation through empirical testing. This approach also has the advantage of unveiling possible counter-intuitive insights of the proposed scheduling strategies, which otherwise might remain concealed. This paper presents: (a) an experimental platform designed to tackle the problem of schedule execution with uncertainty; (b) an analysis of a variety of schedule execution tests performed under variable environmental conditions.