A Production Scheduling Problem with Sequencing Considerations

A type of production scheduling problem with sequencing considerations existing in several manufacturing facilities in chemical industry is formulated as a mixed integer programming problem and solved using a branch and bound search algorithm. The problem has two unusual sequencing aspects, namely, (1) a product to be sequenced can be split up amongst the reactors which, described in sequencing literature as job-splitting, is not usually allowed in machine sequencing problems and (2) the number of products to be sequenced on a given equipment as well as the product sequence need to be simultaneously determined. Some computational experience is reported.