Integrated scheduling and control with closed-loop prediction ⁎ ⁎ Financial support from Research Excellence (ORF-RE) Award RE09-058 and McMaster Advanced Control Consortium (MACC)

Dynamic market conditions as a consequence of increased globalization, coupled with fluctuations in electricity prices brought about by the deregulation of energy markets, require process manufacturing plants to operate in a responsive manner in order to remain competitive. In particular, the quasi steady-state assumption that is typically applied in optimal scheduling does not hold in a highly dynamic operating environment, where the dynamics of transitions have an increasingly significant impact. This has led to a research thrust on the integration of scheduling and control. In this paper, we provide an overview of this topic, highlighting assumptions and formulations related to the plant control system. We then focus on a class of ‘controller aware’ scheduling formulations, in which the predicted closed-loop response of the plant under the action of the plant control system is taken into account. A case study illustrating key concepts is presented.