A General Framework for Modeling Production

We introduce a general framework that guides the management scientist's formulation of deterministic models of production processes. Using the framework, we reformulate the constraints of familiar linear programming-based planning models to specifically treat components of production lead time, thereby realizing a more accurate representation of the production process. In addition, the reformulation accommodates noninteger values for lead times as well as unequal-length planning periods. Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP) and the Critical Path Method (CPM) are recast in terms of the framework, revealing opportunities for model generalization and extension, and their relationship to linear programming models.