Bullet SolutionsAddress: Rua Calouste Gulbenkian, n.º 52, Piso 2, Sala E9, 4050-144 Porto - PortugalPhone: +351 226 099 612 || Mobile: +351 937 970 033 || Fax: +351 220 167 048 || Skype: bullet.solutionsE-mail: [email protected] || Site: www.bulletsolutions.com || Twitter: http://twitter.com/bulletsolutions
Automatic and Optimized Production Scheduler
There are hundreds of people in charge of production man-agement that make a manual production scheduling. This is a combinatorial optimization problem of complex solving be-cause of the large number of constraints, the variety of selec-tion criteria and the almost infinite number of possible solu-tions (even for problems of small dimension).
Therefore, the implications of a specific decision (e.g.: to place a product on a machine before other products) are always de-cisive in the final outcome of the production. To obtain a satis-factory result it is necessary to include an optimization phase in the scheduling production process.
Using the experience over the years, production managers are able to minimize the negative impact of having to manually produce a sequence of manufacturing operations. However, even these solutions can be improved. A better sequence of operations will result in an increase of overall productivity, with the respective financial impact.
A proper sense of what is really possible to produce brings an increase in negotiation power, a better reaction time to changes (faults, changes of orders, among others) and, of course, big financial gains.
Besides other benefits that lead to increased overall productivity, a good production scheduling allows the reduction of:
• Machine idle time;• Inventory costs;• Subcontracting;• Overtime costs;• Delivery times;• Lead time;• Setups;• Delays.
Bullet Solutions has developed a fully automatic and optimized production scheduler, which will assist production managers in their daily task of scheduling, monitoring and adapting to changes. This project has the support of the National Strategic Reference Framework - Incentive System for Research and Technological Development.
