On the application of a metaheuristic suite with parallel implementations for the scheduling of multipurpose batch plants

摘要

In a recent publication by Woolway and Majozi (2018), a novel framework for the application of metaheuristics to the scheduling of multipurpose batch plants was proposed. The initial framework was only developed for continuous-time approaches. This work extends this framework to the discrete-time approach. Additionally, a suite of metaheuristics is applied to two well-known literature examples in both of these frameworks with serial and parallel implementations. Results show these metaheuristics capable of achieving global solutions in the discrete-time approaches and close-to-optimal solutions in continuous-time approaches. These solutions can be found in reduced computational times of up to six orders of magnitude when compared to modern mathematical programming approaches. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.