I have looked at the help center an believe that this is on topic based on this being somewhat a 'Mathematical problems such as one might come across in a course or textbook' as detailed here https://math.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic.
I need to find the most efficient method of producing 77 trolleys consisting of 8 products from 3 production lines in 8 hours or less.
If I were running this on a single production line the total time would be 19 hours, 50 minutes.
The image below is a representation of the data that I have to work with.
The following constraints apply.
- A buffer must be complete before changing to a new product or removing an item from the buffer line. In this scenario there is one buffer available per product. For instance If production line 1 was running three products, there would be three buffers available to this production line.
A buffer is the line where the product goes once it has been made \ put together. A buffer line cannot be emptied until it has reached its maximum fill level. In this example the max number of products per buffer is 75.
- We have to build a trolley at a time. So, when product one is run from production line 1, to buffer 1 this could fill 4 trolleys. Where product 8, can only product 1.5 trolleys per production line and buffer.
My current thought process is to split the entire job into smaller jobs of two 3's and a two, and then run them through one at a time.
Any and all help in this matter is greatly appreciated.