This study presents an approach to optimize the scheduling of furnace loadings in small size foundries. The approach consists of determining a furnace scheduling to produce all ordered items in such a way as to maximize productivity (or profit contribution) and satisfy due dates and process restraints. It is based on the theory of cutting and packing problems; it combines a greedy constructive heuristic and the classical knapsack problem. To validate the approach, a case study was developed in a inox-steel foundry located in São Carlos, SP. The results obtained simulating two weeks of the company production showed that the procedure is able to generate better solutions than the ones used by the company.
production scheduling; steel foundry; furnace loadings; cutting and packing problems; heuristics
