EHMAN

Code: DPI2009-09386 Director: Antonio Espuña Camarasa Funding: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) Period: January 2010 – June 2013 Repository: EHMAN at UPCommons

EHMAN (Extendiendo los Horizontes Productivos frente a la Paradoja de la Integración) addressed the global optimisation of a production system (EWMO), raising the need for coherence between the mathematical models and methodologies usually applied separately to three problems: the design of the process network (location of production sites, warehouses and distribution centres, selection of capacities and technologies), planning (distribution decisions, inventory control, product demand forecasting) and the basic control of the individual elements of the network.

This led to the development and application of integrated models allowing a systematic use of mathematical tools to identify new improvement opportunities at every level, treating a production system and its different parts on equivalent terms. Implementing the resulting model through an ontology, and incorporating into the same system the elements needed to characterise production (including financial and environmental aspects, risk and uncertainty) made it possible to exploit the synergies between the components of the process network and between decision levels more efficiently, achieving better coordination and cooperation and avoiding the inefficiency associated with decisions taken in isolation.