A computational framework for learning production planning policies

In a variety of production settings in industries such as consumer packaged goods (CPG), pharma and other consumer goods, a number of related items are produced together in the same production mode. The production of these families require setup of capacities, which can incur significant costs in terms of labor, material, etc. Hence production planners are faced with the challenge of determining production quantities and the sequence of changeovers so as to achieve an optimal long-term cost-containment strategy. In this paper, we detail the problem formulation and a simulation based policy learning framework. We also discuss the results of our computations performed using this framework.