Optimal design of multipurpose batch plants. 1. Problem formulation

The design of multipurpose plants is posed as a mixed integer nonlinear program in which the binary variables are the structural choice variables. The proposed model is able to accommodate equipment used in and out of phase, units available in two or more sizes within a processing stage, multiple choices of equipment types for each product task, and allocation of products to campaigns and to determine the campaign lengths and sizing of the processing equipment. The proposed formulation is presented and its properties are discussed