A Finite Capacity Material Requirement Planning System for a Multi-Stage Assembly Factory: Goal Programming Approach

This paper aims to develop a practical finite capacity MRP (FCMRP) system based on the needs of an automotive parts manufacturing company in Thailand. The approach includes a linear goal programming model to determine the optimal start time of each operation to minimize the sum of penalty points incurred by exceeding the goals of total earliness, total tardiness, and average flow-time considering the finite capacity of all work centers and precedence of operations. Important factors of the proposed FCMRP system are penalty weights and dispatching rules. Effects of these factors on the performance measures are statistically analyzed based on a real situation of an auto-part factory. Statistical results show that the dispatching rules and penalty weights have significant effects on the performance measures. The proposed FCMRP system offers a good tradeoff between conflicting performance measures and results in the best weighted average performance measures when compared to conventional forward and forward-backward finite capacity scheduling systems.