Computing Minimal Forecast Horizons: An Integer Programming Approach

In this paper, we use integer programming (IP) to compute minimal forecast horizons for the classical dynamic lot-sizing problem (DLS). As a solution approach for computing forecast horizons, integer programming has been largely ignored by the research community. It is our belief that the modelling and structural advantages of the IP approach coupled with the recent significant developments in computational integer programming make for a strong case for its use in practice. We formulate some wellknown sufficient conditions, and necessary and sufficient conditions (characterizations) for forecast horizons as feasibility/optimality questions in 0-1 mixed integer programs. An extensive computational study establishes the effectiveness of the proposed approach.