Patent ID: 7360201

Claim:
A method for automatically identifying options in a project that includes existing components, said method comprising: generating representations of existing reusable components, wherein said representations comprise predicates, including preconditions and effects; storing said representations for retrieval; formulating at least one decision-support issue arising in said project as a planning problem, such that said planning problems is formulated as one of a state-space planner and a plan-space planner using at least one of said representations, said planning problem including: a complete description of an initial state; a partial description of a goal state; and a set of executable actions, wherein an action is applicable in said initial state if a precondition of said action is satisfied in said initial state; solving said planning problem using said one of a state-space planner and a plan-space planner and automated reasoning techniques to identify options relating to said project, wherein a resulting state is obtained by incorporating the effects of said action in a sequence from said initial state and said resulting state contains said goal state; and identifying a set of solutions to meet an optimization criteria for said planning problem by determining whether to automatically select said existing reusable components and whether to select a partial solution for said planning problem.