One of the most difficult tasks in a manufacturing environment is to balance schedule and capacity. The complex nature of this problem has been a focal point for researchers over the years. Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) systems are commonly used for scheduling, although their inability to adequately deal with capacity constraints is a drawback. There has been some success by integrating resource constrained project scheduling tools with MRP. This work augments a scheduling model to have an efficient control over its schedule. In this study, a multiple stage assembly is modeled. The planning horizon is divided into time intervals as per modified rules, which enforce precedence constraints and control resource allocation. The study revolves round the placement of time milestones along the planning horizon. The model is optimized by using a general purpose optimization program with efficient resource utilization. The efficacy of this approach is tested by comparing the completion time for the project obtained by the model to those in existing literature. In general, it is concluded that this model provides improved schedules with considerable reduction in project completion times.
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