A CP Method for the scheduling of multiproduct continuos plants with resource constraints

ZEBALLOS, LUIS JAVIER; HENNING, GABRIELA

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Alemania

Conferencia; ESCAPE-16 + PSE2006 - 16th European Symposium on Computer-Aided Process Engineering-16 + 9th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering; 2006

Dechema

This contribution presents advances in relation to a prior Constraint Programming (CP) formulation that addresses the scheduling problem of a multiproduct plant that has continuous stages and a limited number of intermediate storage tanks. The proposed approach is able to handle production rates of intermediate products which can be greater or lower than the rates of their corresponding consumption campaigns. In addition, the formulation includes a domain specific search strategy which aims at speeding-up the solution process and making problems tractable. The search strategy focuses on those campaigns that seem to be more demanding in terms of storage and equipment requirements and resorts to a domain reduction specific procedure. The proposed approach has rendered very good results for various test problems.