Hierarchical approach to production scheduling in make-to-order assembly

Abstract

This paper presents a hierarchical framework and integer programming formulations for multi-objective production scheduling in a make-to-order manufacturing environment. Integer programming formulations are proposed for the long-term assignment of customer orders to planning periods and the short-term machine assignment and scheduling of production lots in a hybrid flow shop with multi-capacity machines and due-date-related performance measures. The integer programs have been enhanced by the addition of cutting constraints derived for both the long-term customer order assignment and the short-term machine scheduling. Numerical examples modelled on a real-world make-to-order assembly system in the electronics industry are provided and computational results are reported.

Keywords:

• Multi-objective production scheduling
• Flexible flow shop
• Integer programming
• Make-to-order assembly

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express his thanks for the comments of two anonymous referees that helped to improve the quality of the paper. This work was partially supported by KBN research grant No. 3 T11F 010 28, AGH (Poland) and Motorola (USA).