Addressing idle and waiting time in short term production planning

Production systems are facing the increase of economic and sustainability challenges in managing production resources, demand variability and variety, and the increasing shortage of materials. Thus, short-term production planning must include several aspects and consider multiple objective functions simultaneously. In this context, controlling and optimizing waiting and idle times might lead to various benefits, as they are among the main cost sources in production systems and can affect the feasibility of operations from a technological perspective. While waiting time is related to the work in process, idle time refers to a low utilization rate, and both may generate inefficiency and costs. This paper studies how different emphasis to waiting and/or idle time can affect the solution of short-term production planning with several industrially relevant objectives.