A Decision Support System for Packaging Lines in Food Industry

Abstract

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a pilot Decision Support System for the bottleneck packing facilities of a large dairy company. We propose a decomposition of the (planning and scheduling) problem into two levels: a tactical- and operational level. On the tactical level a feasible (daily) ‘master production schedule’ of the orderbook is determined. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming model is the basis for drawing up this schedule. On the operational control level the problem falls apart in two (separate) sequencing subproblems, for whose solution some common heuristic approaches have been chosen.