Lot sizing in capacitated production planning and control systems

Current production planning and control (PPC) systems often separate material requirements from capacity planning. As a result, practitioners often complain about the infeasibility of production schedules regarding capacity, which causes long and unpredictable lead times and poor customers service. This paper describes a hierarchically structured PPC system that explicitly considers production capacity at each stage of the planning process. The impact of the certainty of demand data on the integration of lot sizing and sequencing decisions is discussed. A decision model for lot sizing applicable to changing demand data is proposed. It distinguishes between resources that are critical or uncritical with respect to batching decisions. Several currently available solution procedures are discussed and compared that support lot sizing decisions in multi-level production systems subject to multiple capacity constraints, setup times and dynamic demand rates.