A novel constraint programming model for large-scale scheduling problems in multiproduct multistage batch plants: Limited resources and campaign-based operation

This contribution introduces an efficient constraint programming (CP) model that copes with large-scale scheduling problems in multiproduct multistage batch plants. It addresses several features found in industrial environments, such as topology constraints, forbidden product-equipment assignments,...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Novara, Franco Matías; Novas, Juan Matias; Henning, Gabriela Patricia
Format: Article
Status:Published version
Publication date:2016
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/24189
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/24189
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Scheduling
Constraint Programming
Multiproduct Multistage Batch Plants
Campaign Operating Mode
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Description
Summary:This contribution introduces an efficient constraint programming (CP) model that copes with large-scale scheduling problems in multiproduct multistage batch plants. It addresses several features found in industrial environments, such as topology constraints, forbidden product-equipment assignments, sequence-dependent changeover tasks, dissimilar parallel units at each stage, limiting renewable resources and multiple-batch orders, among other relevant plant characteristics. Moreover, the contribution deals with various inter-stage storage and operational policies. In addition, multiple-batch orders can be handled by defining a campaign operating mode, and lower and upper bounds on the number of batches per campaign can be fixed. The proposed model has been extensively tested by means of several case studies having various problem sizes and characteristics. The results have shown that the model can efficiently solve medium and large-scale problems with multiple constraining features. The approach has also rendered good quality solutions for problems that consider multiple-batch orders under a campaign-based operational policy.