An integrated material rquirements planning and just-in-time framework

A new production planning and scheduling framework is developed to address the multi-stage, production–inventory system problem by integrating Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and Just-in-Time (JIT) production. The objective is to find detailed shop-floor schedules, which specify the quantity of an operation to be processed, at what time, and by which machine, so as to minimize total production cost. The integrated system gets rid of the major problems existing in MRP and JIT. First of all, the proposed integrated system incorporates both the scheduling and capacity planning aspects, simultaneously. Secondly, the integrated system eliminates the need to specify planned lead time. Thirdly, the integrated system, unlike MRP, provides detailed shop-floor schedules. Lastly, the integrated system does not have to operate in the level schedule case as in JIT, so it can handle a very general production environment.