Possibilistic programming in production planning of assemble-to-order environments

For the sake of alleviating the influences of demand uncertainty in assembl e-to-order (ATO) environments, the strategies of regulating dealers' foreca st demands, determining appropriate safety stocks, and deciding the numbers of key machines are usually adopted by manufacturers. In this paper, we pr opose a possibility linear programming model to manage these production pla nning problems. The proposed model accomplishes forecasting adjustments, ma terial management, and production activities. Because of price fluctuations , material obsolescence, and the time value of, capital. the ambiguity of c ost is considered in the objective function of the model. We substituted th e fuzzy objective function with three crisp objectives: minimizing the most possible cost, maximizing the possibility of obtaining lower cost, and min imizing the risk of obtaining higher cost. Zimmermann's fuzzy programming m ethod is then applied for achieving an overall satisfactory compromise solu tion. Finally, an example is given to illustrate our model. (C) 2001 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.