A model for Order and Inventory Planning in Alloy Steel Industry

Production planning is one of the most important challenges in steel industry. Order planning is one major part of this aspect according to the fact that production is usually planned based on customer orders in this industry. Inventory planning is also vital for maximizing capacity utilization. The proposed model in this paper is capable of selecting order, assigning finish time of each order, and determining open orders in each process by considering order planning and inventory planning simultaneously. The model could have a key role in improving production planning of steel companies by on time delivering of the orders, reducing work-in-process, and balancing utility of capacities. Finally, a heuristic algorithm based on genetic algorithm is proposed and its efficiency evaluated in an empirical case study of Iran alloy steel enterprise.