A two pass heuristic algorithm for scheduling ‘blocked out’ units in continuous process industry |
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Authors: | Sumit Kumar Bose Subir Bhattacharya |
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Institution: | (1) Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Management Information Systems Group, Joka, Kolkata, 700104, India |
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Abstract: | This paper addresses the problem of scheduling cascaded ‘blocked out’ continuous processing units separated by finite capacity
storage tanks. The raw materials for the product lines arrive simultaneously on the input side of the first unit. But every
unit can process only one product line at a time, thus giving rise to the possibility of spillage of raw material due to limited
storage capacity. The need to process multiple product lines and the added constraint of multiple intermediate upliftment
dates aggravate the problem. This problem is quite common in petrochemical industry. The paper provides a MINLP (Mixed Integer
Non-Linear Programming) formulation of the problem. However, for any realistic scheduling horizon, the size of the problem
is too large to be solved by standard packages. We have proposed a depth first branch and bound algorithm, guided by heuristics,
to help planners in tackling the problem. The suggested algorithm could output near optimal solutions for scheduling horizons
of 30 time periods when applied to real life situations involving 3 units and 3 product lines.
Preliminary version of the paper appeared in the proceedings of MISTA, 2005. |
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Keywords: | Process scheduling Heuristic search Depth first branch and bound Continuous processing |
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