A continuous-time algorithm for disaggregation of hierarchical production plans
Ali Yalçin, Thomas O. Boucher · IIE Transactions · 2004
In hierarchical production planning systems an aggregate plan is developed in order to set overall production levels. This is followed by a disaggregation step in which individual product families are scheduled for production on shared resources. Each product family is given a time slot during which it will have exclusive use of the resources. The objective in disaggregation is to minimize setup costs during the changeovers among product families while maintaining feasibility with the constraints imposed by the aggregate plan. Past solution approaches to this problem have employed discrete-time formulations. In this paper we introduce a continuous-time solution method. The problem is formulated as a set of linear equations that can be solved simultaneously. An algorithm that provides an iterative solution to the simultaneous equations is proposed. Convergence properties are discussed and it is shown that the proposed method is effective over a range of problem types.