A possibilistic aggregate production planning model for brass casting industry

Abstract

This article discusses a possibilistic aggregate production planning (APP) model for blending problem in a brass factory; the problem computing optimal amounts of raw materials for the total production of several types of brass in a planning period. The model basically has a multi-blend model formulation in which demand quantities, percentages of the ingredient in some raw materials, cost coefficients, minimum and maximum procurement amounts are all imprecise and have triangular possibility distributions. A mathematical model and a solution algorithm are proposed for solving this model. In the proposed model, the Lai and Hwang's fuzzy ranking concept is relaxed by using ‘Either-or’ constraints. An application of the brass casting APP model to a brass factory demonstrates that the proposed model successfully solves the multi-blend problem for brass casting and determines the optimal raw material purchasing policies.

Keywords:

• blending
• possibilistic programming
• aggregate production planning
• brass casting