Recent trends in the chemical industry have resulted in a move away from the production of large amounts of commodity chemicals toward more emphasis on low-volume speciality and high-value-added products. Such materials are often produced in batch plants which provide the needed flexibility for changing products, uncertain market conditions, variable feedstock materials, etc. and for complex synthesis requiring long residence times. Scheduling such manufacturing facilities are complex procedures because most batch plants produce multiple products in a single facility, and the resources of this facility, such as the equipment, the manpower, the utilities and the time, etc. are shared among the products. This project will concentrate on developing computer-aided methodology for scheduling a general batch plant with arbitrary constraints on its shared resources. The PI's method of approach is to develop a schedule that accounts for the allocation of all limited resources (vessels, manpower, utilities, etc.) and then incorporate costs associated with late penalties, inventory, change-over, set-up and clean-up. The method is viable in a dynamic sense because the assumed initial state is the current operating state which thus also automatically accounts for rescheduling in the event of equipment failure, changes in feed, etc. He thus established a feasible schedule and make evolutionary changes to improve it based on heuristics. Commercial use of such methodology should result in higher personnel productivity, resource (time, equipment, labor, energy, etc.) utilization levels, lower production costs, and economically more profitable batch plants.
