Mathematical Model for Product Family Design and Product Sequencing for a Pharmaceutical Company

The pharmaceutical industry faces challenges in efficiently allocating products to machines, resulting in limited production capacity and wastage of resources, which ultimately leads to shortages of critical health products. Traditionally, clustering or product family formation methodologies have relied on the geometric attributes of parts or their tooling in manufacturing processes. Moreover, product sequencing is commonly performed empirically based on the production planner’s discretion. This research aims to optimize the production system of a pharmaceutical company by forming product families to enhance the allocation of products to machines while considering the equipment’s production capacity. An optimization model was developed to group products into families, aiming to minimize setup times for four packaging lines. The criteria for forming these families were based on the active substance, blister size, and format types. Additionally, an algorithm was employed to sequence the products within each family, improving the efficiency of the packaging lines, increasing production capacity, and enhancing the pharmaceutical company’s profitability. The achieved results were compared with the production plan to assess the quality of the solution. Notably, the implementation of this approach led to a significant reduction in setup times from 4.5 hours to 1.5 hours. This research endeavor holds the potential to improve the overall effectiveness of the packaging lines and ensure the company’s continued growth.