Design and Implementation of a Production Planning System in a Rolling Mill: A Case Study

Abstract A real life case study of the design and implementation of a production planning system in an aluminium rolling mill is presented. A tailor-made computerized production planning system was set up for this company. On the aggregate level, a package was developed for simulating future machine loads. These simulations yield all necessary information for determining a production make span for each individual family of products so as to optimize overall machine capacity utilization. 0n the day to day operational level, another package was developed in order to determine the manufacturing schedule of specific orders on a daily basis. A specific dispatching algorithm was developed taking into account due dates of individual orders, production targets on finishing machines, and external factors. This article includes a description of the system and some comments on the actual implementation and possible future extensions.