The 2008 Scheduling and Planning Applications Workshop (SPARK'08)

SPARK'08 was the first edition of a workshop series designed to provide a stable, longterm forum where researchers could discuss the applications of planning and scheduling techniques to real problems. Animated discussion characterized the workshop, which was collocated with the 18th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS-08) held in Sydney, Australia, in September 2008. What keeps the fine advances in this field made over recent years hidden? The international Scheduling and Planning Applications Workshop (SPARK) was established to help address this issue. Building on precursory events, SPARK'08 was the first workshop designed to provide a stable, long-term forum where researchers could discuss the applications of planning and scheduling (P&S) techniques to real problems.