1. A computer-implemented method for controlling operation of a target system, the target system having a plurality of units to be controlled, comprising: for a current time step, predicting demand for resources of the target system, to provide predicted demand for a plurality of future time steps; for the current time step, determining state transitions within the target system to address the predicted demand, to provide a plurality of state transitions; for the current time step, commencing state transitions which begin in the current step, each transition taking a respective time interval to perform; and repeating the predicting, determining, and commencing for at a next current time step.