Integrated Optimization Scheduling Model for Ship Outfitting Production with Endogenous Uncertainties

Abstract

Ship outfitting is a key process in shipbuilding. Efficient and high-quality ship outfitting is a top priority for modern shipyards. These activities are conducted at different stations of shipyards. The outfitting plan is one of the crucial issues in shipbuilding. In this paper, production scheduling and material ordering with endogenous uncertainty of the outfitting process are investigated. The uncertain factors in outfitting equipment production are usually decision-related, which leads to difficulties in addressing uncertainties in the outfitting production workshops before production is conducted according to plan. This uncertainty is regarded as endogenous uncertainty and can be treated as non-anticipativity constraints in the model. To address this problem, a stochastic two-stage programming model with endogenous uncertainty is established to optimize the outfitting job scheduling and raw material ordering process. A practical case of the shipyard of China Merchants Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Satisfactory results are achieved at the lowest expected total cost as the complete kit rate of outfitting equipment is improved and emergency replenishment is reduced.

Keywords

Ship outfitting / Production scheduling / Purchase planning / Endogenous uncertainty / Multistage stochastic programming