Applying DEMO in Operations Research: Lot Sizing and Scheduling

Abstract

As an interdisciplinary field, enterprise engineering can benefit from a wide spectrum of methods, including optimization methods used in Operational Research (OR). However, current optimization approaches (e.g. linear programming) in operations research take a narrow, mathematical view on the problem by simplifying the problem and often making assumptions. As a result, the obtained solutions may significantly differ from what could be obtained by applying a comprehensive enterprise engineering approach. To reduce the discrepancy between solutions obtained from an optimization approach and an enterprise engineering approach, and to obtain a more accurate solution of the problem, in this paper we propose to combine DEMO (an enterprise engineering approach) and Linear Programming (an OR approach). This combination not only helps to obtain accurate results but also to capture crucial views. We hypothesize that these approaches, in a combined manner, capture both the structure and behavior of the enterprise business (business problem), thus providing multiple views. This paper discusses a combination approach and investigates the benefits via an illustrative example.