Patent ID: 8145334

Claim:
A control system for controlling operation of a production system with a plant that can achieve one or more production goals by execution of plans using one or more plant resources, the control system comprising: at least one processor; a plant model including a model of the plant; a diagnosis component implemented using the at least one processor and operatively coupled with the plant 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 a planner operative to receive at least one diagnostic goal from the diagnosis component and at least one production goal, the planner comprising: a formulation representing possible actions in the plant including; constraints and variables for each action to transition the plant from a starting state to a goal state defined by at least one production goal, and an objective function evaluating the number of plant resources suspected of being fault that are used in a given solution, a solver implemented using the at least one processor and operative to provide at least one solution to the formulation based at least partially on the at least one production goal, at least one diagnostic goal, and the current plant condition, and a translation component operative to translate the solution into a plan and to provide the plan to the plant for execution; wherein the planner is operative to select at least one solution for which the number of suspected resources used in the solution is closest to half of the suspected plant resources.