Tactical Resource Allocation for Efficient Resource Utilization

Purpose and goal

The project aimed to gain an increased understanding of which parameters and restrictions that are important when allocating products to production resources, as well as information on which process and logistical parameters affect the tactical allocation of operations. The goal was also to gain increased knowledge of the efficiency potential that exists in allocating operations to production resources in a tactical time frame. This was fulfilled and demonstrated with practical working algorithm, on actual data, based on mathematical optimization.

Expected results and effects

The project resulted mathematically in a methodology for solving optimization problems with several conflicting objectives and increased understanding of which parameters and restrictions that are important when allocating products to production resources. The understanding of this interaction provides positive effects such as: - Expanded optimization space for more global optimization of the company´s processes - Improved decision support related to machine investments - Knowledge on how specific processing methods affect the robustness of the allocations

Planned approach and implementation

Before the start of the project, a feasibility study was conducted. The project was carried out with an industrial PhD student as the central resource, with support from the company and university. He spent the first 1.5 years approx. 2 days/week at the company (until the pandemic), which was favorable for the co-production and understanding of the problem at hand. The project was also run interdisciplinary between three disciplines: applied optimization (CTH), logistics (JTH) and production technology (technical expertise GKN), which provided practical robustness to the results.