A new and practical heuristic for Master Production Scheduling creation

Abstract

This paper describes the most common aspects, parameters, and objectives involved in the Master Production Scheduling (MPS) creation process. It also proposes a practical heuristic for the MPS creation and gives an illustrative example of how to use the proposed method. Although MPS has been widely used and studied, its complexity, mainly due to limited production capacity, flexible fabrication routings, and tight and conflicting performance objectives, has yet to be fully described in the literature. This is also one of the objectives of the presented study. The paper shows some of the decisions involved in creating an MPS, such as balancing conflicting objectives, like maximizing service and minimizing inventory levels, defining backlogging, product types and quantities, resource utilization, and optimal inventory levels. The heuristic proposed considers the most common parameters and decision variables included in an MPS process, and the example further illustrates the complex task of MPS creation.