Novel Approaches for the Integration of Planning and Scheduling

x The problem of integrating planning and scheduling models is addressed. Many of the previous models proposed in the literature assume that both models need to be solved over the same time horizon, leading to intractable models. Integrated models with shorter scheduling horizons are considered. To maintain the trade-off balance between the decision levels, the objective functions are appropriately scaled. The second modeling aspect explored is the communication between planners and schedulers. Communication through inventory policies is explored as an alternative to the traditional communication through production and inventory targets. The resulting models are evaluated in a tailored simulation framework. Models with a shorter scheduling horizon, which cover the decision horizon of the planning, obtain similar profits as the full space models. The communication through inventory policies leads to lower inventories, while maintaining similar profit levels. The proposed models and the modular modeling methodology used are contributions to bring decision support systems closer to practice.