Abstract

Production planning and scheduling for sawmills poses many challenges. Thesolution approaches most commonly used to tackle this problem in the forestindustry are: simulation, mathematical programming models, and a combination ofboth. In this paper we compare the results of using a mathematical model versusa heuristic in scheduling and production planning of a sawmill. We developed amathematical model that takes into account most of the complexities involved inscheduling and production planning of a sawmill, for a one-month planninghorizon. One of the main difficulties is that the supply of hardwood lumberpieces can have different diameters, which are not known in advanced. Thecutting patterns that can be used depend on the diameter of the lumber piece tobe cut. The cutting pattern, on the other hand, determines the products that areproduced. Sometimes suboptimal cutting patterns must be used in order to meetthe production plan. We compare the quality of the solutions generated by themathematical model and the heuristic. Several experiments were conducted usingdata that represents situations faced by a Chilean sawmill. © 2009 IEEE.