The design of multiple production lines under deadline constraint

This study submits a mathematical model, production design and schedule model, to design a manufacturing system consisting of multiple production lines in parallel under the considerations of available machines, order quantity, and production deadline for profit maximization. This paper not only discusses the production rate, the machine cost, and the number of machines in parallel for each workstation of the production line in such a manufacturing system, but also proposes a solution procedure called progressive approach to solve this combinatorial problem. In addition, a computerized program written by Visual Basic 6.0 is completely developed to suggest the structure and the production time interval of every production line in the manufacturing system, as well as to perform the sensitivity analyses and a case study. This study shows a computerized tool to production design engineers in modern manufacturing with profound insight.