The short term scheduling technique based on timed Petri-net representation for multi-product batch plants

Production scheduling is one of the important problems in multiproduct batch plants. Timed Petri-netbased approach has been shown to be a very promising way to handle it. We present timed Petri-netbased formulation approach for multiproduct batch plants with complicated intermediate storage policies, such as: unlimited intermediate storage, no intermediate storage, finite intermediate storage, and mixed intermediate storage. Also, a modified branch and bound and timed-place Petri nets execution algorithm is developed for short-term scheduling of multiproduct batch plants. Through case study, the effectiveness of the proposed approach and algorithm are illustrated.