An attainable region approach for effective production planning

A novel approach for the solution of production planning problems is presented. A detailed scheduling model is analyzed off-line to obtain a convex approximation of the feasible production targets, i.e. the production attainable region (PAR) of each manufacturing facility. The PAR is expressed via simple inequalities that involve only planning variables, lending itself to effective integration with production planning formulations. Moreover, PAR contains all the relevant scheduling information necessary to solve the planning problem with high quality.