Solving Product-Mix problem - A holistic method under unstructured environment

Managing production today is a challenge to the managers, due to uncertainties in demand, availability of resources, customer satisfaction and competition. The decision-making in production planning is difficult when the environment is fuzzy in nature and vague. The problem of Product Mix is considered in this paper, for a real life industrial problem, to determine the mix of products to maximize throughput. The operating costs and the Inventory holding as well may be dealt similarly, under the fuzzy constraints of the market demand, technological and the objectives (goals) of the company. Due to the limitation on the resource capacity of a company, meeting the customers demand becomes difficult and hence reduces the opportunity to earn profits. A Holistic approach to aid the decision makers comprises of application of an intelligent TOC and fuzzy methodology to the resources, technological or the objectives, to find the best possible product mix that maximizes the profit, and creates an opportunity for the company. The problem is systematically approached [1], by applying the TOC heuristics to obtain a Linear Programming Formulation (LP) and then Fuzzy Linear programming (FLP) will be used to obtain an approximate solution based on the industry standard S-curve membership to incorporate the fuzziness in the LP formulation. The information can support the managers for decision-making and suggest improvement in the company.