Patent ID: 8185422

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for allocating processes to a plurality of resources, the method comprising: receiving a process specification defining a plurality of processes, each process having an associated weighting parameter and comprising at least one task belonging to a task category; analyzing an available resource capacity for each of a plurality of resources, each resource capable of performing tasks within at least one task category in at least one task location; establishing a first resource-task assignment set defining an assignment of the plurality of tasks to the plurality of resources depending on the task categories and the task locations, wherein the first resource-task assignment set defines a first scheduling of the tasks depending on the available resource capacities, and evaluating for each of the processes a first schedule parameter depending on the scheduling of the tasks belonging to the respective process; establishing a second resource-task assignment set defining an assignment of the plurality of tasks to the plurality of resources depending on the task categories and the task locations, wherein the second resource-task assignment set defines a second scheduling of the tasks depending on the available resource capacities, and evaluating for each of the processes at least a second schedule parameter depending on the scheduling of the tasks belonging to the respective process; evaluating, by one or more computers and for each of the first and second resource-task assignment sets, a control parameter that indicates a completion time associated with the resource-task assignment set, and that depends on the weighting parameter and the schedule parameter for the resource-task assignment set; selecting one of the first and second resource-task assignment sets depending on a selection criterion for the control parameters; and allocating the tasks to the resources according to the selected resource-task assignment set, wherein evaluating a control parameter for each of the first and second resource assignments comprises: evaluating, for each of the processes scheduled, a process assessment value that is based on a multiplicative product of the corresponding schedule parameter and the weighting parameter assigned to the process; and summing the process assessment values of all processes scheduled.