Diagnostic scheduling in finite-capacity production environments

Planning releases and prioritizing work in manufacturing facilities must be done with the often conflicting goals of meeting due dates and minimizing in-process inventory. The ideal system is one in which the planner can enter the current logistical configuration and. let the system evaluate the configuration's feasibility by developing a schedule. If a feasible schedule is obtained, the system reports on the schedule derived, otherwise it provides diagnostic information suggesting how the situation can be improved. The user can then decide to keep the current schedule, at the risk of missing due dates, or might choose to modify the inputs (e.g. renegotiate a due dare, schedule overtime), retest them with the system, and continue until an acceptable work plan has been established. Our procedure, MRP-C, performs the necessary operations needed at the core of such a decision-support system. MRP-C generates good schedules for finite capacity production scheduling problems when all demands can be met within capacity limitations. Otherwise, it detects scheduling infeasibilities if the instance has no feasible schedule, provides analysis on the possible causes of the infeasibilities and suggests modifications of the input to make the schedule feasible. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.