Application of Interval Arithmetic to Production Planning in a Foundry

Abstract

A novel approach for treating the uncertainty about the real levels of finished products during production planning and scheduling process is presented in the paper. Interval arithmetic is used to describe uncertainty concerning the production that was planned to cover potential defective products, but meets customer's quality requirement and can be delivered as fully valuable products. Interval lot sizing and scheduling model to solve this problem is proposed, then a dedicated version of genetic algorithm that is able to deal with interval arithmetic is used to solve the test problems taken from a real-world example described in the literature. The achieved results are compared with a standard approach in which no uncertainty about real production of valuable castings is considered. It has been shown that interval arithmetic can be a valuable method for modeling uncertainty, and proposed approach can provide more accurate information to the planners allowing them to take more tailored decisions.

Archives of Metallurgy and Materials

“…These can be production [6], energy or manufacturing process [7] management systems. The flexibility of production may also affect the production process, making it even more complex [8,9]. A separate group of such systems in the metal casting industry are decision support systems, which are becoming increasingly popular [10].…”

Archives of Metallurgy and Materials

“…Using the FCAW against wear is one of the most common technology to develop the layer over 2 mm thickness on the parent material [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”