An integrated multi-plant aggregate production-distribution plan generated using memetic algorithm
by P. Ashoka Varthanan, N. Murugan, G. Mohan Kumar
International Journal of Value Chain Management (IJVCM), Vol. 4, No. 3, 2010

Abstract: Many industries adopt multi-site manufacturing in order to reduce their distribution expenses. Such industries allocate the forecasted demand from various customers/demand centres to their respective plants based on gross production, inventory holding and distribution costs. But demand allocation by considering the gross production cost will not be appropriate as production in each plant can be carried out through regular, overtime and outsourcing means. Also, this will lead to allocation of the lion's share of demand to a plant whose regular time production cost is cheaper than the other plants. But overtime/outsourced production cost may be costlier than the regular time production cost of other plants. In this paper, an aggregate production-distribution plan, considering all the above mentioned costs, is developed for a renowned bearing manufacturing industry in India. The proposed integer non-linear programming model is solved using memetic algorithm (MA), a hybrid form of genetic algorithm (GA) which uses simulated annealing (SA) for local search. The results obtained using MA, GA and SA are compared with the solution generated using LINGO 8.0, one of the popular operations research software.

Online publication date: Tue, 08-Jun-2010

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Value Chain Management (IJVCM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com