Simultaneous production and logistics operations planning in semicontinuous food industries

The production and logistics operations planning in real‐life single‐ or multi‐site semicontinuous food industries is addressed in this work. A discrete/continuous‐time mixed integer programming model, based on the definition of families of products, is developed for the problem in question. A remarkable feature of the proposed approach is that in the production planning problem timing and sequencing decisions are taken for product families rather than for products. However, material balances are realized for every specific product, thus permitting the detailed optimization of production, inventory, and transportation costs. Changeovers are also explicitly taken into account and optimized. Moreover, alternative transportation modes are considered for the delivery of final products from production sites to distribution centers. The efficiency and the applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by solving to optimality two industrial‐size case studies, for an emerging real‐life Greek dairy industry.