TY - JOUR
T1 - A Hybrid MIP-CP Approach to Multistage Scheduling Problem in Continuous Casting and Hot-Rolling Processes
AU - Tan, Yuanyuan
AU - Zhou, Meng Chu
AU - Wang, Yingying
AU - Guo, Xiwang
AU - Qi, Liang
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received July 10, 2018; revised December 13, 2018; accepted January 11, 2019. Date of publication March 13, 2019; date of current version October 4, 2019. This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Editor F. Chu and Editor M. P. Fanti upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work was supported in part by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LQ15G010001 and in part by Liaoning Province Dr. Research Foundation of China under Grant No. 201601152 and Grant No. 20175032. (Corresponding author: MengChu Zhou.) Y. Tan and Y. Wang are with the College of Information Science and Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, China (e-mail: tanyuanyuan83@sina.com; infinitewyy@sina.com).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - This paper studies a new scheduling problem in a steel plant, referring to continuous casting (CC), reheating furnace, and hot rolling (HR) processes, which is meaningful and important to the production efficiency and energy saving. First, the problem is modeled as a combination of two coupled subproblems: One assigns casts to continuous casting (CC) machines, decides sequence and start time for casts and rolling units; and another assigns furnaces and decides start time for rolling slabs in a reheating furnace. The objectives are to maximize the number of slabs processed in a mode of hot charge rolling or direct hot charge rolling so as to reduce the energy requirement and the temperature drop of slabs and minimize the residence time of slabs in a reheating furnace to save energy. Then, based on a Benders decomposition strategy, a hybrid algorithm that combines mixed-integer programming and constraint programming is designed to solve each subproblem. An effective cut-generation scheme based on a priority relationship is developed for resolving resource conflicts and unsatisfied setup time constraints. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Note to Practitioners-This paper deals with a scheduling problem arising from CC to HR process in steel manufacturing. It decomposes the original problem into a CC-HR scheduling problem and a reheating furnace scheduling problem. Previously, such a problem is handled, respectively, which always cause energy waste and mismatching plan. This paper takes complex technology constraints into full account to minimize energy waste and energy requirement and establishes nonlinear mathematical models for studied problems. Then, it designs a hybrid algorithm combined mixed-integer programming and constraint programming. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can solve them effectively. The obtained solution gives decision makers some desired reference to determine a right schedule when actual production tasks are executed.
AB - This paper studies a new scheduling problem in a steel plant, referring to continuous casting (CC), reheating furnace, and hot rolling (HR) processes, which is meaningful and important to the production efficiency and energy saving. First, the problem is modeled as a combination of two coupled subproblems: One assigns casts to continuous casting (CC) machines, decides sequence and start time for casts and rolling units; and another assigns furnaces and decides start time for rolling slabs in a reheating furnace. The objectives are to maximize the number of slabs processed in a mode of hot charge rolling or direct hot charge rolling so as to reduce the energy requirement and the temperature drop of slabs and minimize the residence time of slabs in a reheating furnace to save energy. Then, based on a Benders decomposition strategy, a hybrid algorithm that combines mixed-integer programming and constraint programming is designed to solve each subproblem. An effective cut-generation scheme based on a priority relationship is developed for resolving resource conflicts and unsatisfied setup time constraints. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Note to Practitioners-This paper deals with a scheduling problem arising from CC to HR process in steel manufacturing. It decomposes the original problem into a CC-HR scheduling problem and a reheating furnace scheduling problem. Previously, such a problem is handled, respectively, which always cause energy waste and mismatching plan. This paper takes complex technology constraints into full account to minimize energy waste and energy requirement and establishes nonlinear mathematical models for studied problems. Then, it designs a hybrid algorithm combined mixed-integer programming and constraint programming. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can solve them effectively. The obtained solution gives decision makers some desired reference to determine a right schedule when actual production tasks are executed.
KW - Continuous casting (CC)
KW - hot rolling (HR)
KW - hybrid algorithm
KW - hybrid system
KW - reheating furnace
KW - scheduling
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U2 - 10.1109/TASE.2019.2894093
DO - 10.1109/TASE.2019.2894093
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85076776027
SN - 1545-5955
VL - 16
SP - 1860
EP - 1869
JO - IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
JF - IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
IS - 4
M1 - 8667087
ER -