Developed priority rules support system for ELSP: a case study

Economic lot size scheduling problem (ELSP) is one of the most challenging problems in production and operation management. Although studied extensively in the literature, yet it is still one of the major topics in scheduling research. ELSP with its various configurations can be found in many industrial fields. In this paper, a producer of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) is considering this decision. The company has a production line producing a range of products having dependent changeover cost. It is required to determine the production schedule and lot size that minimise the total cost. A new heuristic model is developed that uses different priority rules to find the best lot size that minimises the total cost. The new model is then simulated to analyse and compare the performance for the different rules with different lot size. The results of the case study used show that choosing the scheduling policy relies on a suggested cost ratio threshold which is a function of the cost parameters of the operation. The effect of different cost parameters on the performance of different priority rules is also discussed.