Shipping schedule-oriented production planning using genetic algorithm

Abstract

This paper presents a modified genetic algorithm for the production planning problem solving while distribution of the products to the customers is considered. The aim of the optimization task is to minimize objective function composed of the joint costs of production (manufacturing line rearrangement minimization), transportation (delivery route minimization) and holding (shipping date optimization) while all the customers’ orders are satisfied within the defined production horizon. This class of problems is considered as a NP-hard combinatorial problem and it is not possible to solve it analytically for larger input values. Thus, the stochastic procedure is presented in this paper. This procedure, which is based on the genetic algorithm, respects all the components of the objective function and provides acceptable solution in reasonable time. The experiments with real data show, that presented procedure provides the same or (in most cases) better solution than algorithms commonly used in industry.