A multiobjective aggregate production planning model for lean manufacturing: Insights from three case studies

Abstract

This article proposes a multiobjective mathematical model to optimize the multiperiod aggregate production planning (APP) of multiproduct companies. Although there are many studies of lean manufacturing (LM), its integration with APP has not been studied. The present article is intended to integrate APP and LM, including an analysis of market winners, market qualifiers, and waste. The model's objective functions include the cost, lead time, and waste minimization in addition to maximizing the product quality. A solution procedure is suggested to solve the model using IBM CPLEX 12.4 software. The model is investigated in three different case studies to check its applicability and generalizability. According to the obtained results, the proposed model provides an optimized APP with regard to the major concerns of LM, including waste, overproduction, time, and sourcing. In addition, according to the sensitivity analysis, lean weighting of the objective functions provides a better output than using equal weighting.