Lot sizing and scheduling: a survey of practices in Brazilian companies

Abstract

The lot sizing and scheduling (LSS) problem has motivated much research in production planning and control. However, while there are many papers on modelling this problem, there is scant research on how it is addressed in the industry. We present a survey of Brazilian industry practices in LSS, intending to understand the problem faced by operations managers, drawing parallels with academic findings to identify gaps between theory and practice and opportunities for future research. We confirm that the main objective of practitioners in companies operating under MTS strategy is to maximise service level, followed by inventory reduction. Availability of raw material, demand uncertainty and safety stock levels, lack of decision support software and the impact of sequence-dependent set-up times are other major concerns highlighted by the practitioners. Lastly, we confirmed that despite the relevant body of research on this problem, there is still a large gap between theory and practice.

Keywords:

• Lot sizing
• machine scheduling
• set-up time
• survey
• industry practices