Computer-assisted multi-item, muti-machine and multi-site scheduling in a hardwood flooring factory

Within this paper, we consider the problem of supporting the scheduling of a set of lumber drying kilns as to meet the demand generated by the production plan of a hardwood factory, while avoiding stockouts. The computer-based coordination of the kiln-drying activities within the global hardwood flooring production process is first presented. Then, we focus on the kiln drying activities and develop a heuristic to schedule kilns in a multi-item, multi-machine and multi-site production environment, with the objective of keeping inventories low while meeting demand and avoiding stockouts. An overview of KilnOpt, an object-oriented software environment to implement the scheduling heuristic is presented in the last section of the paper.

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