1997 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 29-46
The present study, involving the production of potted flowers, was undertaken to determine the conditions for the optimization of the production planning, where the planned production periods were assumed to be definite. The analysis technique used was that of DP (dynamic programming).
In this study, positing several alternative plans mutually exclusive in terms of the types of the plant cuttings and the sizes of the finishing flowerpots, I examined the constraints on available pot bench capacity and the rations of per-pot profits for pairs of different-sized pots (i.e. A1=r4/r6 and A2=r5/r6, where rj stands for the profit for a pot of a certain size (j=4, 5 or 6). However, I confined the analysis to the cases where the assumed profit values and the realized values differed. As for production costs, I considered them only where they differed between the alternative plans. Furthermore, based on the analysis, I identified three alternative plans which were optimal for the respective pot sizes and potted their plan numbers on a A1-A2 plane, where 1=t=3 (t stands for production periods).
The model formula used for the analysis is considered to be useful for the evaluation of production planning where the available bench capacities and the profit rations A1 and A2 vary during the production periods.
