Algebraic and Automated Targeting Techniques for Resource Allocation Problems in Production Planning

Optimum planning of resources is crucial in ensuring business sustainability. In the past decade, several graphical planning tools have been proposed based on process integrationtechniques for the optimum allocation of production resources such as equipment, financial, and human resources. These graphical tools provide useful insights for production planners in allocating resources to fulfill production needs. Nevertheless, graphical tools suffer from inaccuracy problems, in addition to being cumbersome. In this work, algebraic and automated targeting techniques are proposed to overcome the above limitations. The algebraic technique proposed is the numerical equivalent to the graphical targeting tool and can be implemented in spreadsheet software. The automated technique, on the other hand, is conceptually similar to the algebraic technique, but is implemented on an optimization platform. Apart from performing cost optimization, the automated technique can be extended to account for availability and pace of the production resources, which is the main novelty of this work. Doing these would involve tedious iterative steps with both graphical and algebraic techniques. Five examples involving different production resource allocations are solved to demonstrate the newly proposed techniques.