USER INTERFACES FOR MATHEMATICAL-PROGRAMMING BASED MULTIPURPOSE PLANTOPTIMIZATION SYSTEMS

This paper is concerned with the design and implementation of an integ rated software package for the optimisation of general multipurpose ba tch and semi-continuous plants. In particular, we describe a sophistic ated graphical user interface that supports the rapid specification of scheduling, planning, design and retrofit problems in an error-free m anner. These problems are posed graphically and solved under a unified framework based on the state-task network process representation and a general characterisation of all production resources, such as proces sing and storage equipment, utilities and manpower. This representatio n facilitates the specification of processing recipes of arbitrary com plexity, involving material recyles, shared intermediates, batch split ting and mixing and multiple routes to the same end-product. The archi tecture employed shields the users from the complex mathematical. mode ls and solution procedures that are employed, freeing lip their time f or problem specification and results analysis.