Simulation-based optimization for production planning : integrating meta-heuristics, simulation and exact techniques to address the uncertainty and complexity of manufacturing systems

This doctoral thesis investigates the application of simulation-based optimization (SBO) as an alternative to conventional optimization techniques when the inherent uncertainty and complex features of real manufacturing systems need to be considered. Inspired by a real-world production planning setting, we provide a general formulation of the situation as an extended knapsack problem. We proceed by proposing a solution approach based on single and multi-objective SBO models, which use simulation to capture the uncertainty and complexity of the manufacturing system and employ meta-heuristic optimizers to search for near-optimal solutions. Moreover, we consider the design of matheuristic approaches that combine the advantages of population-based meta-heuristics with mathematical programming techniques. More specifically, we consider the integration of mathematical programming techniques during the initialization stage of the single and multi-objective approaches as well as during the actual search process. Using data collected from a manufacturing company, we provide evidence for the advantages of our approaches over conventional methods (integer linear programming and chance-constrained programming) and highlight the synergies resulting from the combination of simulation, meta-heuristics and mathematical programming methods. In the context of the same real-world problem, we also analyse different single and multi-objective SBO models for robust optimization. We demonstrate that the choice of robustness measure and the sample size used during fitness evaluation are crucial considerations in designing an effective multi-objective model.