Preventing a third work shift during peak demand at the multi-model circular conveyor belt of Power-Packer Oldenzaal

Recently, a long lasting demand peak forced Power-Packer Oldenzaal to increase their capacity from a two-shift system to a three-shift system. Management observed idle time at the paint- and after-paint departments. These departments are connected through a multi-model circular conveyor belt. Given the observed idle time, it is the aim to prevent the third-shift for these departments in case of a new demand peak. To do so, the departments operational schedule should be optimized. This thesis proposed a planning strategy of simulated annealing and tabu-list. A digital twin of the production environment was developed to test the scheduling strategy. Typically, in many real-life cases where annealing is applied, the objective of the candidate solution can be computed incrementally. This is not the case in our case study.