Models and Methods for Production Scheduling in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical marketplace is dominated by large multinational companies, competing worldwide, with a global presence in branded products. Retaining marketshare requires standards of product quality and reliability close to 100%, attained at sustainable cost. Wholesalers and final customers expect reliability and quality from pharmaceutical companies, which face an increasing challenge to achieve such standards. Reliable production plans are critical to this aim. In fact, to achieve 100% availability of final products, it is not sufficient to attain excellence in each phase of the planning process from strategic planning to real-time scheduling, but it is also important to effectively manage the coordination between these different phases