Three-index model for westenberger-kallrath benchmark scheduling problem

Short-term scheduling of batch operations has become an important research area in the last two decades. Recently Shaik and Floudas (2009) proposed a novel unified model for short-term scheduling using unit-specific event based continuous time representation employing three-index binary and continuous variables. In this work, we extend this three index model to solve a challenging benchmark problem from the scheduling literature that covers most of the features contributing to the complexity of batch process scheduling in industry. In order to implement the problem, new sets of constraints and modifications are incorporated into the three-index model. The different demand instances of the benchmark problem have been solved using the developed model and the results are compared with the literature to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed three-index model.