A Projection-Based Method for Production Planning of Multiproduct Facilities

An algorithm is presented for identifying the projection of a scheduling model's feasible region onto the space of production tat-gets. The projected feasible region is expressed using one of two mixed-integer programming formulations, which can be readily used to address integrated production planning and scheduling problems that were previously intractable. Production planning is solved in combination with a surrogate model representing the region of feasible production amounts to provide optimum production targets, while a detailed scheduling is solved in a rolling-horizon manner to define feasible schedules for meeting these targets. The proposed framework provides solutions of higher quality and yields tighter bounds than previously proposed approaches. (C) 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 55: 2614-2630, 2009