The block planning approach: A case study application from the beverage industry

Block planning is a specific concept for the development of production schedules based on the definition of setup families and the production of product variants in a pre-defined sequence. In process industries, e.g. in the production of beverages, there is often a natural sequence in which the various products are to be produced in order to minimize total changeover time and to maintain product quality standards. In this type of industry, the predominant type of production system is ¿make-and-pack¿, i.e. the final bottling and packaging lines determine the output rate of the entire production system. A mixed-integer linear optimization (MILP) model is proposed that determines the size and the time phasing of the individual production lots while observing capacity constraints of the various production lines and assuring the coverage of daily demand elements.