Measures and approaches for a priori analysis of schedule robustness

Abstract

Crude oil scheduling is a complex process involving the allocation of arriving crude parcels to charging tanks and flow allotment of tanks to crude distillation units (CDU) typically over 1-4 wk. An approach to evaluate and quantify the effects of various disturbances a priori which would enable the planner/scheduler to understand the criticality of any disruption was developed. A flexible problem representation which enables different problem data to be analyzed was implemented. Different refinery configurations which differ in the numbers of tanks, CDU, etc., can be easily handled by this flexible problem representation. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting (Salt Lake City, UT 11/4-9/2007).