Hi John,
I think your challenge might be quite involved. And Excel might nor might
not be the best tool to address the challenge. Your problem sounds a lot
like linear programming. One product that I have used is Lindo
(
www.lindo.com) for linear programming. However, your problem might be
small enough that it can be readily accomplished using Excel.
You might want to consider looking at
www.tushar-mehta.com website. Tushar
is frequent contributor to this newsgroup and is well versed in both Excel
and Operations Research (the stuff you want to solve). You might even want
to send Tushar a quick e-mail (e-mail address removed) and get his quick
thoughts on whether Excel is the proper tool to use, and if it isn't what he
might suggest. He also might be able to give you some pointers or point you
in the right direction.
Regards,
Kevin
John said:
Has anybody out there used the solver function in Excel to optimize the
scheduling of a machine shop. I have prodution history of the mean and
standard deviation by shift and machine and operator for the 14 pieces of
equipment plus what part number(s) that each machine can specifically run.
I want to feed the final assembly demand schedule based on those constraints
of the supplying operation and let the solver show the optimal combination
of machine and operator to meet the production demand. If anybody has a
template or example they could send me it would be very much appreciated.
Thanks.
