A TSP-based MILP model for medium-term planning of single-stage continuous multiproduct plants

In this paper, we consider the problem of medium-term planning of single-stage continuous plants with a single processing unit that manufactures several products over a planning horizon of several weeks. Sequencedependent changeover times and costs occur when switching from one type of product to another. To overcome the computational expensiveness of traditional slot-based models for large instances, a novel TSP-based (traveling salesman problem) mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed that relies on a hybrid discrete/continuous time representation. The model is applied to an example of a real world polymer processing plant to illustrate its applicability. Finally, the proposed model is compared to recently published approaches through literature examples, and the results show that the computational performance of the proposed model is superior.