Product cycling with uncertain yields: Analysis and application to the process industry
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Rajaram, K; Karmarkar, US
署名单位：
University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
刊物名称：
OPERATIONS RESEARCH
ISSN/ISSBN：
0030-364X
DOI：
10.1287/opre.50.4.680.2867
发表日期：
2002
页码：
680-691
关键词：
摘要：
We formulate the dynamic product-cycling problem with yield uncertainty and buffer limits to determine how much product to produce at what time to minimize total expected switching, production, inventory storage. and backorder costs, A restricted Lagrangian technique is used to develop a lower bound and a model-based Lagrangian heuristic. We also develop an operational heuristic and a greedy heuristic. The operational heuristic has been implemented at seven refineries at Cerestar, Europe's leading manufacturer of wheat-and corn-based starch products in the food-processing industry. This has already reduced total costs by around 5 percent or $3 million annually at these sites. Tests of the Lagrangian heuristic on data from these refineries during this period have shown the potential to further reduce total costs by at least 2 percent or about $1 million. In addition, the Lagrangian heuristic has provided an objective basis to evaluate the economic impact of several strategic decisions involving issues such as buffer expansion, variability reduction. and product selection.