Scheduling increased product yeald by 2-3 % in food processing plant
Project title
Scheduling increased product yeald by 2-3 % in food processing plant
User company name
Danisco
Industry sector
Food and beverage
Production process type
Multistep batch process characterised with separations and concentrating steps, sweeteners (xylitol, fructose etc.)
Application area
Production Optimisation
Country of residence of the user
Denmark
Employees
2000+
Year the project started
1999
Supplier of service
Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Åbo Akademi University
http://www.abo.fi/fak/ktf/english/
Tool(s)
CPLEX
Pay-back time in months
N/A
Type of simulation used
Scheduling
Short description of the project
The process in question, located in Finland, is a multistep process with a regenerative recycling loop, some equipment operated in continuous mode and restricted storage capacity of raw materials and intermediates. The process is operated in campaigns. The task is to maximise throughput by finding an optimal sequence of operating units when the planning horizon is one week. In the proposed approach the planning horizon is divided into subtasks that are planned sequentially. The plan is updated when disturbances or changes occur, however once in a day. (Reference: Heinonen, J. and Pettersson, F., Automated production planning in batch process, Proceedings of Automaatio 2001, Helsinki 2001.)
Soft Benefits
N/A
Public quantitative benefits
The results indicated an increase of product yield of 2-3 %.
