Title: The campaign and lot size scheduling problem: a modification of the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem for the pharmaceutical industry

Authors: Alex J. Ruiz-Torres, Pedro I. Santiago, Wenming Chung

Addresses: Departamento de Gerencia, Facultad de Administracion de Empresas, Universidad de Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras, San Juan, PR 00931-3332, USA. ' Packaging Process Engineering, Eli Lilly and Company, Carolina, PR 00985, USA. ' Information and Decision Sciences, College of Business Administration, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79668, USA

Abstract: This paper presents a model to minimise inventory and setup costs in a multi-product operation where production is organised in campaigns. A campaign is defined as a number of successive, equally sized lots of a same product. Major and minor sets are considered. The decision variables are the per product time between campaigns and number of lots per campaign. Two cases are presented: when the time between campaigns is common to all products, and when it is a multiple of a common period. Examples are presented which demonstrate the cost differences based on the assumption of time between campaigns.

Keywords: economic lot scheduling; lot sizing; product campaigns; inventory control; production systems; inventory systems; inventories; pharmaceutical industry; setup costs; multi-product operations; major sets; minor sets; decision variables; product times; common periods; cost differences; Eli Lilly; Puerto Rico; USA; United States; logistics systems; logistics management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2010.034425

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2010 Vol.7 No.2, pp.184 - 197

Published online: 03 Aug 2010 *

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