Multiple Precast Component Orders Acceptance and Scheduling

Abstract

Precast components manufacturer generally operates under limited production capacity and produces products of one order which may delay another. This paper develops a precast component order acceptance and scheduling model that aims to maximize the total profit in a stochastic multiple orders environment. In that model, the increasing of the overall profit of the precast component manufacturer is achieved by using a heuristic algorithm and a dynamic order acceptance heuristic. Results of numerical examples indicate the proposed model realizes the increasing total profit in most cases comparing to accept all of the orders. Besides, this study tested three order acceptance criteria and found that the profit-based criterion is to be more stable in terms of maximum total profit. This approach is anticipated to provide support to precast component manufacturers when faced with multiple orders in long-term production.