The Benefits of Flexible Production Rates in the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem

This paper considers the economic lot scheduling problem in which a family of items is produced using a single machine. The flexible production approach allows alteration of production rates during a production run. This flexible approach is investigated within the common cycle framework using marginal analysis to obtain a simple optimal solution procedure. Consequently, managerial insight regarding the optimal solution as well as simple expressions for lower bounds on the savings vis-à-vis the rigid and traditional approaches are provided.