Multi-site production management with forecasted demand in a two-echelon production environment: a case study

摘要

This paper addresses the multi-site production planning when the future demand is uncertain. Planning activities in a multi-site environment aim to decide when to produce what and where, with regard to the trade-off between the service level to be granted to the customers and to the total cost (productive and logistic) of the production plan. After an introduction about the problem and the definition of the leverages that should be used, an industrial case study is presented and a suitable planning process is proposed, highlighting the critical aspects involved and the opportunities that could be exploited. Finally, a linear programming model for multi-period, multi-echelon and multi-product planning is exposed.