Article ID: | iaor20071925 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 44 |
Issue: | 20 |
Start Page Number: | 4311 |
End Page Number: | 4327 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2006 |
Journal: | International Journal of Production Research |
Authors: | Cattrysse D., Oudheusden D. Van, Beullens P., Collin P., Duflou J. |
Keywords: | programming: travelling salesman, production, heuristics |
This paper discusses the planning module of system that has been developed in a research project investigating the possibilities for automatic planning of press brakes. Only limited attention has been given to production-planning problems for bending processes in the sheet-metal industry. A well-considered production-planning module provides an important opportunity for cost saving and flow-time reduction. The module will support and may replace an experienced planner. Under certain assumptions, the planning problem can be modelled both ways as a Travelling Purchaser Problem (TPP) and as a Generalized Travelling Salesperson Problem (GTSP). A hierarchical decomposition approach is presented to solve the TPP, while the GTSP is solved using guided local search. These methods are compared based on a set of problems from a real production environment and perform well.