Performance Evaluation of a Multi - Product Production Line – - a Multiple

The need to mass produce electronic components such as computer chips in early 70’s generated demand for production facilities that were flexible to switch from one type of product to the next with relative ease. Automation played an important role in speeding the machine set ups, machine loading, and processing time. While electronic industry has epitomized the need for such automated manufacturing facilities, other industries also benefited from such automation. Determination of the capacity of such automated production lines has been a legitimate subject of scholarly research (Abdul-Kader, 2005). This paper is aimed at applying Goal Programming (GP) in evaluation of the capacity of a highly automated production line that is flexible enough to manufacture a variety of products, while the explicit preferences of the decision maker to achieve various goals is incorporated in the GP model.