A price-directed decomposition approach for solving large-scale capacitated part-routing problems

摘要

We consider the problem of planning the production steps of several parts through a manufacturing system with both process and routing flexibilities. The problem is formulated as a network flow-based linear programming model which seeks to minimise the total material handling, production, and outsourcing costs subject to satisfying all the part demands and not exceeding any of the machine capacity limits. We develop a price-directed decomposition-based approach that exploits the special structure of the model in order to solve it. An extensive computation experiment is carried out in order to gain some insights into the impacts of flexibility in the manufacturing system on the optimal decision and cost, and to test the efficiency of the procedure in handling large scale problems.