Scheduling Solutions for the Paper Industry

In this paper, we describe a decision support system for paper production scheduling. This is the first system that provides an integrated solution to paper production scheduling, and considers interactions between different stages of the manufacturing and distribution process. The system follows a multi-criteria optimization approach and generates multiple enterprise-wide schedules to reveal tradeoffs between the multiple, and often competing objectives. Each enterprise schedule includes an allocation of orders to paper machines, sequencing of orders on each machine, trim schedules for each production run and a loading schedule. The new solution methods that are developed and used in the system advance the state of the art in the areas of multi-machine scheduling, trimming and load planning. The large portfolio of algorithms used by the system is embedded in an agent-based decision support framework, called Asynchronous Team (A-Team). Our scheduling system is the first successful application of the A-team framework in a real-world environment. In addition, we have extended the A-team framework to include human schedulers' input in solution generation. This extension to the A-Team framework promotes cooperation between the schedulers and the system for improved solution quality and decision making. Successful implementations of the system in several paper mills in North America have resulted in significant savings and improved customer satisfaction.