Optimal lot-sizing in cyclic manufacturing processes

The class of Petri nets denoted as timed event graphs can be used to represent a wide class of manufacturing systems. This fact allows one to apply analytical techniques for performance evaluation of such Petri nets. This, in turn, permits to state mathematical programming problems whose objective is the optimization of manufacturing system performances. In this paper, the optimization of the system throughput is considered, with respect to the definition of the lot sizes in a cyclic manufacturing process. As a secondary optimization objective, the minimization of the work-in-progress, while keeping the system working at its maximum productivity, is considered