Applying AI to Manufacturing: Linear Order Promising and Production Planning
Y. Smirnov · 1999
Many vertical industries within Manufacturing have already entered or are about to enter a new era of mass-customization. Customers expect improved level of service, precise price and date quotes for their personalized orders. Internet communications in general and dedicated e-commerce efforts in particular greatly facilitated the process of taking orders and shipping the requested products to anticipating customers. However, precise, scalable and effective Order Promising and Production Planning still constitute serious challenges for manufacturers. Specialists in Manufacturing Modeling have already identified the deficiencies of the existing approaches that traditionally split production models into Bills of Materials (BOMs) and Routings (Goldratt 1990). Whereas Artificial Intelligence (AI) understood long ago the benefit of merging states and actions in a combined planning model, an alternative, constructive solution to the BOM/Routing modeling approach has not been explicitly propo...