Layout Aspects of Pipeless Batch Plants

Pipeless plants comprise a number of processing stations and a number of mobile vessels transferring materials to be processed at the stations. Layout considerations has been found to be of particular significance in those plants because they determine the transfer times for the vessels, which can influence scheduling issues. This paper presents a general mathematical programming formulation simultaneously integrating layout, design, and production planning for pipeless plants. The overall problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model based on a continuous-time-domain representation. The applicability of the model is demonstrated by one illustrative example.