Integrating logistic capabilities and employment level into distributed manufacturing systems along global supply chains
Final Report Abstract
The manufacturing of many goods is nowadays performed within global supply chains. From the sourcing of raw materials until the delivery to the final customer, several intermediate production steps are carried out at different places so that local cost benefits and the know-how of a worldwide network of partners can be used. This distribution of production steps increases the complexity of planning tasks for an efficient operation along with the size of typical supply chains. Both, production and transport logistics are dynamic processes that are subjected to different kinds of disturbances. Production and transport are alternating in the supply chain, so it is reasonable to strive for an integrated planning of these processes. Thus, in case of a disruption in one of the processes, the available flexibility in both processes can be used in order to mitigate the consequences for a given production and transport schedule. Currently, the architecture of available planning tools includes a comprehensive view on the supply chain only for long and medium term decisions. An integrated view on production and transport regarding operational decisions and the reaction on disruptions is not yet implemented. One of the reasons is the computational complexity of production and transport scheduling problems, which makes it hard to find optimal schedules for real-world scenarios. Therefore, the scheduling of supply chain operations is usually separated into smaller subproblems, which can be solved easier but do not lead to optimal solutions for the supply chain. This project comprised the development of methods and tools with the aim to close this research gap. The integrated production and transport scheduling problem was first formulated as a mathematical optimization problem. Due to the high computational complexity of the resulting problem, a heuristic method was developed that combines a genetic algorithm with a commercial solver for linear programs. The algorithm was implemented as a software with graphical user interface, which enables a user to define own production and transport scenarios for the computation of integrated schedules. In order to cope with disruptions that might occur during the operation of a supply chain, a fault detection method was developed for production as well as transport operations. In case of a detected critical disruption, a modification of the initial schedule is necessary. However, it is not always necessary to reschedule all operations. Therefore, a graph-theory based algorithm was developed and implemented, which allows a flexible rescheduling of parts of a given schedule. The operation of a supply chain requires the control of operations and the reaction on disruptions. Thus, a control strategy for the combination of the previously described scheduling, fault detection and partly rescheduling methods was proposed. The results of the project were very promising and well received by the BRAGECRIM community as well as by the industry. It is intended to improve and apply the software to a real production and transport scenario of an industrial partner in the scope of a knowledge transfer project in order to show its applicability and performance in real world scenarios.
Publications
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A genetic algorithm for the integrated scheduling of production and transport systems. In: Helber, S.; Breitner, M.; Rösch, D.; Schön, C.; Graf von der Schulenburg, J.-M.; Sibbertsen, P.; Steinbach, M.; Weber, S.; Wolter, A. (eds.): Operations Research Proceedings 2012. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 533-539
Hartmann, J.; Makuschewitz, T.; Frazzon, E.M.; Scholz-Reiter, B.
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A framework for the control of integrated production and transport systems by combining evolutionary scheduling with fault detection methods. In: Sethi, S. (ed.): Integrating practice in POM research and teaching. Denver, USA, 2013
Scholz-Reiter, B.; Hartmann, J.; Fries, C. E.
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A generic approach for the graph-based integrated production and intermodal transport scheduling with capacity restrictions. In: Procedia CIRP, 7(2013)0, Elsevier, Philadelphia, USA, pp. 109-114
Scholz-Reiter, B.; Hartmann, J.; Makuschewitz, T.; Frazzon, E.M.
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Detektion kritischer Störungen in Supply Chains. In: Industrie Management, 29 (2013)6, pp. 26-30
Hartmann, J.; Metzger, M.; Scholz-Reiter, B.
