A bounded dynamic programming solution to the batching problem in mixed-model just-in-time manufacturing systems

The batch production smoothing problem (BPSP) aims at finding appropriate batch sizes for a variety of products and sequencing the batches in such a way that their appearances are uniformly dispersed over the planning horizon. Extending the previous research work on the BPSP, this paper introduces a bounded dynamic programming (BDP) approach. Computational experiments prove that the BDP approach reduces the computational time needed to solve the problem significantly and allows larger-size problems to be solved within practical times.