Application of fuzzy linear programming to aggregate production plan of a refinery industry in Taiwan

After the oil market in Taiwan has been opened to private enterprise, the oil refinery industries in Taiwan have not only entered a completely free market; but also faced the challenge from world competition. In such an environment, there exist varieties of uncertain factors, which have caused the failure of traditional production planning models. Therefore, in this study we develop a responsive and flexible production planning system to cope with uncertain manufacturing factors. On the basis of fuzzy set theory, the uncertain demand and cost are clarified, and a fuzzy linear programming model is proposed to find a maximal profit production strategy with degree of satisfaction. The proposed model has been applied to CPC Corporation, Taiwan. The results show that the developed model is able to provide useful information for developing profit-effective oil refinery strategies in an uncertain environment.