OPTINAL SCHEDULING OF IDEALIZED MULTI-PRODUCT BATCH OPERATION

A heuristic model which determines the scheduling of serial flowshops with minimization of the makespan is proposed for an idealized batch chemical plant. It generates an initial sequence by heuristic reasoning and improves it recursively until no improvement is possible. The heuristic reasoning is based on Johnson's Rule which gives the sequence with the minimum makespan for a two-unit flowshop. The evolutionary step searches the neighborhood of the current sequence for sequences with lower makespan. The robustness of this model is also examined by comparing the minimum makespan of literature examples with the theoretical one.