Title: On the short period production planning in industrial plants: a real case study

Authors: Francesco Longo

Addresses: Modelling and Simulation Centre – Laboratory of Enterprise Solutions (MSC-LES), Mechanical Department, University of Calabria, Ponte P. Bucci, Cubo 44 C, III Floor, Rende (CS) 87036, Italy

Abstract: The present research work proposes a simulation-based tool for short period production planning in industrial plants. The tool has been specifically developed for a real manufacturing system that produces high pressure hoses in the south of Italy. During the developmental phase, an advanced simulation approach, based on programming code and tables for information storage, was adopted. As a result the proposed modelling architecture ensures flexibility and high computational efficiency and allows comparison of the system's performances under different production planning scenarios obtained by applying dispatching rules, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithms. The suitability of the simulation outputs is ensured by the verification and validation activities carried out in the developmental phase; furthermore, specific subroutines allow the full integration of the simulation model with the company's ERP system.

Keywords: SO scheduling: shop order scheduling; discrete event simulation; DES; GAs; genetic algorithms; dispatching rules; short period production planning; high pressure hoses; Italy; hose manufacturing; modelling; ant colony optimisation; ACO.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2013.055189

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2013 Vol.8 No.1, pp.17 - 28

Received: 26 Dec 2011
Accepted: 28 May 2012
Published online: 13 Sep 2013 *

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