This work considers the scheduling problem of continuous make-and-pack industries, including flexible intermediate storage vessels, aiming to provide better synchronisation of the production stages. A novel continuous-time, precedence-based, MILP model is developed for the problem under consideration. Mass balance constraints are cleverly satisfied using a continuous-time representation. Extending previously proposed precedence-based frameworks, flexible vessels are used for storing multiple intermediates of the same recipe. Furthermore, new efficient resource-constraints, related to generation and recycling of byproduct waste are introduced to consider additional benefits by their utilisation in the plant. A two-stage MILP-based solution strategy is proposed for the solution of real-life, large-scale industrial problem instances. Several case studies, inspired by consumer goods industries, are used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed framework. Results illustrate that the utilisation of intermediate buffers leads to a better synchronisation of the production stages and increased productivity, as unnecessary idle times, total waste and total plant costs are reduced.

这项工作考虑了连续制造和包装行业的调度问题，包括灵活的中间储存容器，旨在提供更好的生产阶段同步。针对正在考虑的问题开发了一种新颖的连续时间、基于优先级的 MILP 模型。使用连续时间表示巧妙地满足了质量平衡约束。扩展先前提出的基于优先级的框架，灵活的容器用于存储同一配方的多个中间体。此外，引入了与副产品废物的产生和回收相关的新的有效资源限制，以考虑在工厂中利用它们的额外好处。针对现实生活中的大规模工业问题实例，提出了一种基于 MILP 的两阶段解决方案策略。受消费品行业启发的几个案例研究用于说明拟议框架的适用性。结果表明，中间缓冲区的使用可以更好地同步生产阶段并提高生产率，因为减少了不必要的空闲时间、总浪费和总工厂成本。