Patent ID: 7937175

Claim:
A production control system for controlling operation of a production system with a plant that can achieve one or more production goals, the control system comprising: a planner operatively coupled with the production system to provide one or more plans for execution in the plant based on at least one production goal; a plant model operatively coupled with the planner and including a model of the plant; and a diagnosis engine operatively coupled with the planner, the production system, and the model, the diagnosis engine operative to determine a current plant condition based at least partially on a previously executed plan, at least one corresponding observation from the plant, and the plant model, and to determine expected information gain data representing diagnostic value for one or more possible plans or partial plans based on the current plant condition and the model; wherein the planner is operative to construct or select at least one production plan for the plant that concurrently achieves at least one production goal and at least one diagnostic objective relating to identifying resources causing intermittent or persistent faults based at least partially on the current plant condition, the plant model, and the expected information gain data from the diagnosis engine.