A PC-based production scheduling system using a mixed integer programming approach

This study describes the development of a PC-based production scheduling system for a plastic manufacturing company. The complexity associated with the company’s scheduling problem arises from the need to address three major scheduling issues simultaneously, namely, lot sizing, machine loading and meeting target due-dates. The resulting system acts as a quantitative planning tool capable of generating short-term production schedules that minimize cost, also a decision-support tool assisting the scheduler in analysing and evaluating user-proposed schedules, provides useful information for short-term planning purposes and uses a user-friendly menu-driven environment allowing the user to specify parameters and to access information on interests.