Dynamic lot sizing and tool management in automated manufacturing systems

The overall aim of this study is to show that there is a critical interface between the lot sizing and tool management decisions, and these two problems cannot be viewed in isolation. We propose five alternative algorithms to solve lot sizing, tool allocation and machining conditions optimization problems simultaneously. The first algorithm is an exact algorithm which finds the global optimum solution, and the others are heuristics equipped with a look-ahead mechanism to guarantee at least local optimality. The computational results indicate that the amount of improvement is statistically significant for a set of randomly generated problems. The magnitude of cost savings is dependent on the system parameters.