A MULTI-CHOICE GOAL PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO MULTI-PERIOD PRODUCTION LINE SCHEDULING PROBLEM

In manufacturing, production planning is an important activity that provides effective control of production and the overall cost of manufacturing. The main goal of the production manager is to control daily production lines and optimally utilize the workforce. This paper proposes a multi-choice goal programming approach to determine the multi-period production line scheduling in an environment of multiple aspiration levels. This paper considers the scheduling of four different types of products on three production lines with multiple-choice aspiration levels. The production lines are merged into an inspection facility consisting of dual inspection stations. Each goal constraint has been assigned with two aspiration levels. The model is solved using LINGO (Schrage [38]) to obtain the optimal solution. An illustrative example of a production scheduling problem is presented to demonstrate the model results. The proposed model considers the achievement of aspiration levels of goals to the production line scheduling such as the number of units to be produced for each period, production cost, capacity utilization, and meeting customer demand. The multi-choice goal programming (MCGP) approach is used to find the optimal quantity of different products to be produced in multiple lines. The proposed MCGP approach can be applied in a real-life situation in production scheduling and planning under multiple aspirations levels. The proposed model can be a useful tool for managers while converting multiple goals to operational-level plans.