A heuristic approach to optimize the production scheduling of fruit-based beverages

Abstract: In this paper, the fruit-based beverage production scheduling problem is studied. The aim is to determine the lot sizing and scheduling production, optimizing inventory costs, backorders and cleanings. Fruit-based beverage production processes typically consist of two production stages, beverage preparation and pasteurization/filling/beverage packaging, including the following characteristics: an intermediate inventory in the second stage, temporal cleanings in both stages and the need for synchrony between the two stages. An effective heuristic based on a two-phase mathematical model is proposed to solve the problem in situations where item changeovers in the tanks (Stage 1) and in the lines (Stage 2) are sequence-dependent on the production. In the first stage, the heuristic searches for feasible solutions, while the second is an improvement stage. Computational tests were run using data based on real instances of a beverage company in two variants of the heuristic and both are promising because they are able to find good solutions to the problem in computational times acceptable in practice.