Article ID: | iaor2006454 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 28 |
Issue: | 1/2 |
Start Page Number: | 171 |
End Page Number: | 185 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2004 |
Journal: | Computers and Chemical Engineering |
Authors: | Magatao L., Arruda L.V.R., Neves F. |
Keywords: | manufacturing industries, programming: integer |
This paper addresses the problem of developing an optimisation structure to aid the operational decision-making of scheduling activities in a real-world pipeline scenario. The pipeline connects an inland refinery to a harbour, conveying different types of oil derivatives. The optimisation structure is developed based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP) with uniform time discretisation, but the MILP well-known computational burden is avoided by the proposed decomposition strategy, which relies on a auxiliary routine to determine temporal constraints, two MILP models, and a database. The scheduling of operational activities takes into account product availability, tankage constraints, pumping sequencing, flow rate determination, and a variety of operational requirements. The optimisation structure main task is to predict the pipeline operation during a limited scheduling horizon, providing low cost operational procedures. Illustrative instances demonstrate that the optimisation structure is able to define new operational points to the pipeline system, providing significant cost saving.