Development of a time-efficient heuristic method for production scheduling with resource constraints and changeover considerations

The use of the correct tool in the resource production planning process is absolutely necessary in order for industries to compete effectively and be successful in the actual global economy. The heuristic method developed as part of this research is computationally time efficient and allows solving production planning problems with restrictions of resources and considering product or parts changeover times. The proximity of the results obtained by the heuristic method was compared against a mix integer linear programming model developed by Stefan Voss. This model consideres the setup times and the capacity available for production.; Both the optimization model and the heuristic method where programmed and executed in "Visual BASIC". A statistical experiment was designed and executed to determine how close the solution of the heuristic method was from the optimal value and the computational time savings when the heuristic method is used. Having this information analyzed, a case study that provides the necessary complexity to evaluate both models was developed using an experimental design. Using regression analysis and normality tests for the residuals, the difference between objective function value and computational time from both methods demonstrates that the heuristic method provides a solution near the optimum value using always minimal computational time.