The Economic Lot Scheduling Problem (ELSP): Review and Extensions

The ELSP is a time-honored problem that “has been around” since 1915. It is the problem of accommodating cyclical production patterns when several products are made on a single facility. Recent contributions to its resolution resulted in either analytical approaches to a restricted problem, or heuristic approaches to the entire problem.

This paper reviews critically the various contributions to the problem, and extends the analysis in the following four directions:

1. An improved analytical approach

2. A test for feasibility,

3. A systematic means for escape from infeasibility, and

4. A procedure for the determination of a basic period for a given set of multipliers to achieve a feasible schedule.