A Linear Programming Model for Production Planning of Photovoltaic Materials

This study presents a mathematical programming model to develop production planning in the manufacturing processes for photovoltaic silicon ingots and wafers. The model is formulated as a linear programming model that maximizes total growth margin, which is composed of production cost, inventory cost, shortage cost, and sales profit while considering the constraints associated with the production environments of photovoltaic materials. In order to demonstrate the utility of the model for production planning, we run operations for a planning horizon of a year for a case study. When the primary results of this mathematical programming are compared with the historical records, the model could have resulted in the considerable increase of the total growth margin by effectively reducing inventory cost if a decision maker had employed the model as a decision support system with perfect information for sales demand.