A mixed-integer linear programming model for the continuous casting planning

The development of optimization models for planning and scheduling is one of the most useful tools for improving productivity of a large number of manufacturing companies. This paper presents a mixed-integer programming model for scheduling steelmaking-continuous casting production. We first review the recent works in continuous casting planning. We focus on a model inspired from an application of steelmaking-continuous casting by Arcelor Group in Liege, Belgium. The process scheduling is characterized by several constraints: job grouping, technological interdependence, no dead time inside the same group of jobs and dynamic processing time of jobs. We present a formulation with mixed-integer linear programming which can be solved using standard software packages. Finally, we treat a few examples to illustrate this application and we conclude this paper with some comments and directions for future extensions. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.