Determining load patterns for the delivery of assembly components under JIT systems

This paper introduces a dynamic programming model and search methods for determining the load patterns of components on trucks from a single supplier to an assembly company. It is assumed that JIT principle is applied to the delivery of components to an assembly company. This study attempts to minimize the line-stoppage cost at an assembly company during a planning horizon. A beam search algorithm is developed to determine the optimal load pattern, while candidate load patterns are selected from a database of historical load patterns or generated by a pattern generating algorithm. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.