Go Back to Homepage Charles R. Sox
Associate Professor
Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering
This project will create a new engineering thrust in the development of new optimization models and efficient procedures for generating near-optimal production schedules for the stochastic lot scheduling problem. This problem consists of scheduling the production sequence and lot sizes for multiple products on a single facility with random demand. Although this problem is frequently encountered in industry, there is relatively little research for it. Building on the principal investigator's previous research in stochastic planning, this project will develop and implement new mathematical optimization models and algorithms that generalize existing models and incorporate a network structure that increases solution speed and expands the range of problems for which this technique is practical. The project will also provide a comparative evaluation of proposed control policies for this problem to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and to assist in the selection of the most effective control policy for a particular application. The principal investigator has established industry contacts both in Alabama and the Southeast who support the project and are interested in the potential application of its results.
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