Integrated campaign planning and resource allocation in batch plants

Abstract

Operational planning in batch plants has been studied extensively in the literature. However, the focus has largely been on developing better formulations and solution approaches for large examples. This work attempts to capture the key aspects of the industrial planning activity such as interactions among the planner and other stakeholders and the effect of resource allocation on process performance. We present a simple mathematical formulation for integrated resource allocation and campaign planning in multiproduct batch plants. Our model enables decision support pertaining to campaign scheduling, sequence-dependent changeovers, key resource allocations, scheduled maintenance, inventory profiles with safety stock limitations, and new product introductions. To demonstrate the performance of our mathematical model, we consider a case study from a typical specialty chemical plant from the lube industry. We validate our approach using a series of dynamic business and market scenarios with planning horizons of up to 2 years. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.