Heuristic Particle Swarm Optimization for Integration Problem of Batching and Scheduling in Chemical Industries

Abstract This paper considers the integration problem in the batch production mode of chemical industries, which contains a series of decisions such as the size and amount of batches, assignment of the batches on the units, sequence of the batches on each unit, making a timetable of batches production. For such integration problem, we develop a new solution approach, Heuristic Particle Swarm Optimization (HPSO) which combines some heuristics with PSO in order to obtain feasible solution in a simple method. Then two tactics are presented to speed up the algorithm. The performance of the new solution procedures for the integration problem is demonstrated by solving several instances of a case study from process industries. In contrast to the methods in the literature, HPSO can solve problem with sufficient accuracy in faster speed and principle simple. Moreover, HPSO can solve much larger practical problems.