Economic Selection of the Mean and Upper Limit for a Container-Filling Process Under Capacity Constraints

Abstract

Consider a container-filling process with a lower product specification limit. It is assumed that the items with contents below the lower specification limit cannot be shipped to customers. To screen out nonconforming items, every filling result is examined by an automatic weighing machine through a conveyor belt. We consider the two-level problem, in which a lower specification limit is used to screen out nonconforming items and an artificial upper limit is used to screen out overfilled items. Both nonconforming and overfilled items are re-processed until they become accepted items. In addition, we also consider a capacity constraint that requires that the total number of conforming items produced by the production process meet a specified demand. We illustrate the effectiveness of our model with an example problem and compare the result with that of other models applied to the capacitated case.