THE SCHEDULING OF ECONOMIC LOT SIZES ON VOLUME FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

Previous efforts on solving the classical economic lot scheduling prob lem (ELSP) assume pre-determined and inflexible production rates. Prod uction rates in many cases, such as orders filled by a machine, can be changed. Moreover, unit production cost of an item depends on its pro duction rate. In this paper, we extend the ELSP model to cases where p roduction rates are decision variables. Unit production cost for each item becomes a function of its production rate. We propose an algorith m to find a solution to the modified economic lot scheduling problem f or special unit production cost functions and illustrate the results w ith numerical examples.