Developing a multi-stage production planning and scheduling model for a small-size food and beverage company

Abstract

A great deal of research has been undertaken in recent years related to facility capacity expansion and production planning problems under deterministic and stochastic constraints in the literature. However, only a small portion of this work directly addresses the issues faced by the food and beverage industry, especially in small-sized enterprises. In this study, a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model (MILP) is developed for production planning and scheduling decisions for a small-size company producing syrup and jam products. The main constraint is that the multiple syrup and jam production lines in the model share the same limited-capacity module designed for inventory planning. To this end, the present model offers an efficient solution for executing a multi-product, multi-period production line by finding the most satisfactory strategy to match the right product with the useable capacity leading to profit maximization. The present approach is capable of coping with varying demands by offering a detailed costing procedure and implementing an effective inventory model.