An approximate framework for large multistage batch scheduling problems focusing on bottleneck resources

MARCHETTI, PABLO A.; CERDA, JAIME

European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering - 16 - Vol 21B

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Año: 2006; p. 1991 - 1996

A rigorous representation of the batch scheduling problem is often useless to even provide a good feasible schedule for many real-world manufacturing facilities. In order to derive simpler scheduling methodologies, some usual features of multistage processing structures should be exploited. A common observation in industry is the fact that most plants have very few bottleneck operations and the bottleneck resource controls the plant throughput. Consequently, the quality of the plant schedule heavily depends on the proper resource assigment and sequencing of bottleneck operations. Every other part of the processing sequence should be properly aligned so that the right amount of material required by the bottleneck timely arrives. This work introduces a bottleneck-based MILP scheduling model for multiproduct batch facilities that can also account for bottleneck resources other than equipment units and critical operations performed at different processing stages. Three large-scale examples have been solved at very low CPU time, despite near-optimal schedules are still encountered.