Knowledge systems for planning support

The nature of organizational planning is examined, and the status of planning research is discussed. Several major recurrent technical hurdles that have emerged in planning research, and for which satisfactory solutions have yet to be found are identified. To circumvent these problems and accelerate the near-term availability of intelligent planning aids, an alternative approach is suggested. It consists of bifurcating planning research by decoupling the problem-solving component of planning systems from the knowledge-representation and plan-evaluation components. This allows the development of interactive planning systems in which humans play the role of problem solver and machines assist by analyzing, monitoring, and refining plans initiated by humans. Eventually, as research on problem-solving methods matures, it should be possible to recouple this component gradually to achieve true system autonomy.<>