SCHEDULING OF MULTIPURPOSE BATCH PROCESSES WITH MULTIPLE BATCHES OF THE PRODUCTS

Abstract

Optimal scheduling of batch processes becomes excessively complex if large number of batches of the products has to be generated. In most cases, however, the search space of the optimization procedure can be drastically reduced by eliminating the redundant solutions through additional combinatorial constraints. The proposed approach that generates these additional constraints is described here for a graph-theoretical method for batch process scheduling, nevertheless, it can be conveniently embedded into other methods developed for optimal scheduling.