An optimization model for the order dispatching problem in distributed production environment

In distributed production environment, products manufacturing may be strategically distributed worldwide. This paper studies an important problem of order management in the distributed production environment: order dispatching problem (ODP). A mathematical model is developed to describe the problem, which assigns orders to manufacturers subject to a set of objectives and constraints (i.e., profits, transportation costs and usage rate of parts inventory). A neural network with heuristic mechanism is designed to solve the model. The embedded heuristic mechanism can make the solutions converge faster and obtain better results as well. The computation results show that the heuristic NN can find satisfactory solution of ODP in acceptable time so as to make order management in distributed production environment effective and efficient.