Abstract
In this paper, we propose a novel MIP-based heuristic method to deal with a lot sizing and scheduling problem with multiple heterogeneous production lines in a production setting with perishable items. The problem is inspired by the production processes adopted by some Brazilian food industries and it considers that several production lines share the same scarce production resources. Therefore, only a subset of those lines can simultaneously operate in each production period. Moreover, the production environment is characterized by the existence of sequence-dependent setup times and costs, and by the production of perishable items which can be stocked for a short period only. Firstly, we propose a facility location reformulation for a model previously proposed in the literature. Secondly, we propose a heuristic composed of two phases. The first phase has an elaborated approach to building feasible solutions solving initially an aggregated lot sizing problem to decide which production lines to assemble, followed by the resolution of the various single line lot sizing and scheduling problems. The second phase applies improvement heuristics exploring principles of fix-and-optimize and local branching procedures. Computational results carried out using a data set proposed in the literature are presented in order to study the efficiency of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that our heuristics provide superior results when benchmarked with a heuristic from the literature specifically developed to solve the problem under consideration, and with a commercial MIP solver.
Highlights
In periods of economic crisis, the development of good production plans can be crucial for the survival of a company in the market
The lot sizing and scheduling problem (LSP) consists of determining the quantities to be produced of each product and the sequence in which these products are produced in each period, with the aim to ensure the fulfillment of customer demand while minimizing the costs incurred in the production process
We observe that the used test instances that are described in Section 6.1 and the computational implementation of the proposed heuristics are available at the home page https://inma.ufms.br/docentes/willy-alves-de-oliveira/willy/
Summary
In periods of economic crisis, the development of good production plans can be crucial for the survival of a company in the market. For the specific domain of lot sizing and production planning, we refer the interested reader to Brahimi et al (2017) for an extensive recent survey of single-item problems, to Doostmohammadi & Akartunalı (2018) for a thorough overview of complex multi-item problems, and to Absi & van den Heuvel (2019) for a review of effective relax-and-fix methods in this domain. For some industries such as food and beverage, the production plan involves the simultaneous determination of the production quantities (lot sizes) and the sequence of production in different production lines with the aim of minimising costs and ensuring to fulfill the customer’s demands, as noted by Baldo et al (2014).
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