Integrated material planning and operations scheduling

This paper presents an Integrated approach for Material Planning and finite Operations Scheduling (IMPOS). The approach assumes the existence of a system that provides a relative priority measure for customer orders, based on a predetermined set of factors including – but not limited to – due dates. Orders are sequenced on descending order of the priority measures to form the Master Production Sequence (MPS) list. Starting from the top of the MPS list, orders are planned one at a time, by determining their respective quantity requirements first. The next phase schedules the requirements by time allocation of the available finite resources to their operational requirements. The IMPOS approach attempts to reduce production lead times during its finite scheduling procedure through analysis of the details of each operation in conjunction with other associated operations and the ordering policy applied. Generating finite schedules quickly enables IMPOS to handle effectively the dynamic behaviour of the manufacturing environment. The approach is detail and exemplified.