A MULTIPLE CRITERIA APPROACH FOR PRODUCTION PLANNING OF AUTOMATED MANUFACTURING

Abstract

The product range versatility of automated production systems provides scope for economic operations covering a wide range of feasible groups of orders. The selection of a particular group of orders which will facilitate the satisfactory fulfilment of possibly conflicting multiple performance goals requires the formulation of a flexible planning model, incorporating several special characteristics. This paper presents a modelling approach which enables the determination of compromise solutions, using a goal programming formulation with boolean expressions and a weighted attainment function. This can be solved using standard mathematical programming software. Consideration of the modular elements in the model formulation is followed by an example problem to illustrate its application.