Authors:
Hossein Mostafaei
1
and
Pedro M. Castro
2
Affiliations:
1
Universidade de Lisboa and Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Portugal
;
2
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Scheduling, Tree-like Structure, Decomposition Approach, Batch Sequencing.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Business Analytics
;
Cardiovascular Technologies
;
Computing and Telecommunications in Cardiology
;
Data Engineering
;
Decision Support Systems
;
Decision Support Systems, Remote Data Analysis
;
Health Engineering and Technology Applications
;
Industrial Engineering
;
Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Mathematical Modeling
;
Methodologies and Technologies
;
Operational Research
;
Optimization
;
OR in Transportation
;
Pattern Recognition
;
Resource Allocation
;
Scheduling
;
Software Engineering
;
Symbolic Systems
Abstract:
A core component of the oil supply chain is the distribution of products. Of the different types of distribution
modes used, transportation by pipeline is one of the safest and most cost-effective ways to connect large
supply sources to local distribution centers, where products are loaded into tanker trucks and delivered to
customers. This paper presents a two-level optimization approach for detailed scheduling of tree-like pipeline
systems with a unique refinery and several distribution centers. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP)
formulation is tackled in each level, with the upper and lower level models providing the aggregate and
detailed pipeline schedules, respectively. Both models neither discretize time nor divide a pipeline segment
into packs of equal size. Solutions to two case studies, one using real-life industrial data, show significant
reductions in both operational cost and the CPU time with regards to previous two level approaches.