Grade Selection and Blending to Optimize Cost and Quality

• Published in: Operations research Vol. 49; no. 2; pp. 271 - 280
• Main Authors: Karmarkar, Uday S, Rajaram, Kumar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum INFORMS 01.03.2001; Operations Research Society of America; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subjects: Asphalt; Capital costs; Chemical processes; Chemicals; Cost control; Cost functions; Economic costs; Fertilizers; Fixed costs; Glucose; Heuristic; Heuristics; Industrial production; Industries: chemical, food, and petrochemical sectors; Ingredients; Integer programming; Linear programming; Management; Manufacturing; Manufacturing processes; Manufacturing productivity: optimizing cost, and conformance quality; Mathematical programming; Minimization of cost; Operations management; Operations research; Optimal solutions; Optimization; Petrochemicals industry; Processes; Production costs; Production planning; Production planning: blending and grading in process industries; Productivity; Quality control; Software; Specialty chemicals industry; Studies; United States

In many chemical process applications, a large mix of products is produced by blending them from a much smaller set of basic grades. The basic grades themselves are typically produced on the same process equipment and inventoried in batches. Decisions that arise in this process include selecting the...