A review of discrete-time optimization models for tactical production planning

Abstract

This study presents a review of optimization models for tactical production planning. The objective of this research is to identify streams and future research directions in this field based on the different classification criteria proposed. The major findings indicate that: (1) the most popular production-planning area is master production scheduling with a big-bucket time-type period; (2) most of the considered limited resources correspond to productive resources and, to a lesser extent, to inventory capacities; (3) the consideration of backlogs, set-up times, parallel machines, overtime capacities and network-type multisite configuration stand out in terms of extensions; (4) the most widely used modelling approach is linear/integer/mixed integer linear programming solved with exact algorithms, such as branch-and-bound, in commercial MIP solvers; (5) CPLEX, C and its variants and Lindo/Lingo are the most popular development tools among solvers, programming languages and modelling languages, respectively; (6) most works perform numerical experiments with random created instances, while a small number of works were validated by real-world data from industrial firms, of which the most popular are sawmills, wood and furniture, automobile and semiconductors and electronic devices.

Keywords:

• production planning
• lot sizing
• mathematical programming
• optimization
• tactical planning
• discrete-time models

Acknowledgment

This study has been funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València projects: ‘Material Requirement Planning Fourth Generation (MRPIV)’ (Ref. PAID-05-12) and ‘Quantitative Models for the Design of Socially Responsible Supply Chains under Uncertainty Conditions. Application of Solution Strategies based on Hybrid Metaheuristics’ (PAID-06-12).