An architecture for logistics replanning

With the increasing pressures imposed by budget constraints many organizations, governmental and private alike, are trying to build distributed architectures that connect existing systems and use their results. In this paper we describe the development of a replanning system that uses the ideas of agency theory in a distributed environment. We assume that the initial plan is generated by an existing planner. The replanner will react to plan changes that are required by user input, discovery of new goals, parameter changes or other causes. The architecture developed in this paper is a flexible, modular, decentralized one that can meet the changing needs of a distributed planning system. Transportation and redistribution problems associated with the ship cargo configurations exemplify the replanning concepts.