Production Scheduling for Damageable Items with Demand and Cost Flexibility Using Genetic Algorithm

In this paper, a production inventory model is designed with the assumption made about the cost function that will influence the empirical results obtained regarding measurement of volume flexibility. We consider a particular kind of products which are usually stored in stacks and damaged during the storage due to accumulated stress of heaped stock. These are known as damageable items. Here the model is developed for such items with stock-time-price sensitive demand and shortages. The unit production cost is taken to be a convex function of the production rate. The mathematical expression for the total relevant cost is derived and it is minimized subject to different constraints of the system. Because of the nonlinearity and complexity of the problem, the model is solved numerically and the final evaluations are made using genetic algorithm (GA). A numerical example is given and sensitivity analyses are performed to analyze the influence of various parameters on the overall cost. The results can help those manufacturing firms which deal in damageable products.