Production program planning in the metal products industry using linear optimization

Abstract

A classical example of the Linear Optimization (Linear Programming, LP) is the Planning of Production Program (PPP). But there are unfavourable conditions in the metal products industry: The products are composed of a lot of parts and groups which exist very often in various combinations and/or which can form cross-linked assemblies of prefabricated machine parts. Most of the matrices have approx. 50 % non-zero elements and rectangular shape with a large number of columns. The feasible basic solutions are to be increased by organizational and computing means. To decrease the number of variables the products are comprehended to groups of products.