A DECOMPOSITION STRATEGY FOR LARGE-SCALE SCHEDULING PROBLEMS IN MULTI-STAGE MULTI-PRODUCT BATCH PLANTS

G. KOPANOS; L. PUIGJANER; C.A. MÉNDEZ

Río de Janeiro

Conferencia; International conference on Industrial Logistics; 2010

An efficient two-stage decomposition solution strategy for solving real-world scheduling problems in multi-product multi-stage batch plants is presented. The proposed method has as a core a mathematical model. The MILP-based solution strategy consists of a constructive step, wherein a feasible and good solution is rapidly generated by following some criteria, and an improvement step, wherein the initial solution is systematically enhanced by adopting several rescheduling techniques. The proposed strategy perfomance is tested on a number of problem instances of a real-world multi-product multi-stage pharmaceuticals scheduling problem. High quality solutions are reported with low computational effort.