Thecomposition of semi finished inventories at a solid board plant

Henrico L.T. Wanders, Gerard J.C. Gaalman and Gerard Sierksma
Additional contact information
Gerard Sierksma: Groningen University

No 01A51, Research Report from University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management)

Abstract: A solid board factory produces rectangular sheets of cardboard in two different formats, namely large formats and small formats. The production process consists of two stages separated by an inventory point. In the first stage a cardboard machine produces the large formats. In the second stage a part of the large formats is cut into small formats by a separate rotary cut machine. Due to very large setup times, technical restrictions, and trim losses, the cardboard machine is not able to produce these small formats. The company follows two policies to satisfy customer demands for rotary cut format orders. When the company applies the first policy, then for each customer order an ‘optimal’ large format (with respect to trim loss) is determined and produced on the cardboard machine. In case of the second policy, a stock of a restricted number of large formats is determined in such a way that the expected trim loss is minimal. The rotary cut format order then uses the most suitable standard large format from the stock. Currently, the dimensions of the standard large formats in the semi finished inventory are based on intuitive motives, with an accent on minimizing trim losses. From the trim loss perspective it is most efficient to produce each rotary cut format from a specific large format. On the other hand, if there is only one large format in each caliper, the variety is minimal, but the trim loss might be inacceptably high. On average, the first policy results in a lower trim loss. In order to make efficiently use of the two machines and to meet customer’s due times the company applies both policies. In this paper we concentrate on the second policy, taking into account the various objectives and restrictions of the company. The purpose of the company is to have not too many different types of large formats and an acceptable amount of trim loss. The problem is formulated as a minimum clique covering problem with alternatives (MCCA), which is presumed to be NP-hard. We solve the problem by using an appropriate heuristic, which is built into a decision support system. Based on a set of real data, the actual composition of semi finished inventories is determined. The paper concludes with computational experiments.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/229934617 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/229934617 [302 Found]--> https://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/229934617 [302 Found]--> https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/publications/pub(0d64c46a-960c-444e-baf6-8105c3779069).html [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/pub(0d64c46a-960c-444e-baf6-8105c3779069).html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gro:rugsom:01a51

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Report from University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hanneke Tamling ().