Optimizing the workload of production units in a smart manufacturing system to find internal production targets

This paper proposes a production planning approach for a job shop type manufacturing company in electronics sector in the Netherlands that operates with make-to-order convention and has a high-mix production range. We propose a novel Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model that converts the accepted customer orders into feasible workloads of production units by possibly delaying some of their deadlines. We establish the complexity of the problem and discuss characteristics of the problem instances of our case study conducted in a medium-size
manufacturing company in the south of the Netherlands. Our computational results show that the proposed MILP model can allocate desired workload to work centers by dynamically adjusting the time horizon for production plans and it can practically be solved within reasonable times
for daily updates of internal production targets. As a future direction we discuss how our model can be used to make tactical decisions if its
problem instance includes product group data and its predicted customer demand.