Abstract
Short-term scheduling of a multi-stage factory consisting of many parallel and competing resources is a problem encountered in many process industries, such as the fast-moving consumer goods’, pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics’ industries. In such factories, there can be from 2 to 15 packing lines, which can pack one or more formats (sizes). There are several intermediate storage resources as well as several making units. Some packing lines are dedicated to packing different formats of one product, while others can pack different products in different formats. A combination size/product is called Stock Holding Units (SKU). Packing rates depend on both SKU and line. Although it will be assumed throughout that a line packs at its constant nominal rate once started for a SKU, start-up rates are generally slower and a line may take significant time to reach full efficiency. The making units are batch or continuous processing units with finite rates/ capacities. The storage resources store intermediate and finished products. These resources may be dedicated, semi-dedicated or flexible in nature.KeywordsSchedule ProblemCompletion TimeVehicle Route ProblemStorage ResourceGantt ChartThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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