A continuous time model for a short-term multiproduct batch process scheduling

In the chemical industry, it is common to find production systems characterized by having a single stage or a previously identified bottleneck stage, with multiple non-identical parallel stations and with setup costs that depend on the production sequence. This paper proposes a mixed integer production-scheduling model that identifies lot size and product sequence that maximize profit. It considers multiple typical industry conditions, such as penalties for noncompliance or out of service periods of the productive units (or stations) for preventive maintenance activities. The model was validated with real data from an oil chemical company. Aiming to analyze its performance, we applied the model to 155 instances of production, which were obtained using Monte Carlo technique on the historical production data of the same company. We obtained an average 12% reduction in the total cost of production and a 19% increase in the estimated profit.