A Flexible Scheduling Algorithm for Storage Tanks and Its Application to Production Planning Problems

Abstract

In the scheduling of operation of tanks for products storage, both the production plan and the delivery plan are always subject to change. Constraints and criteria for the schedules are also changed by revision of the structure of a system of storage tanks and the allocation of operators to tasks. In this paper a scheduling algorithm for storage tanks is proposed, taking account of two kinds of flexibility; the ability to cope with the changes in constraints and criteria, and the ability to make schedules so as to guarantee the feasibility of delivery at any time in the specified range. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is confirmed by developing a method to solve production planning problems including the scheduling of storage tanks and applying it to some example problems.