ISBN 9783843934756

978-3-8439-3475-6, Reihe Technische Chemie

Matthias Heitmann
Framework for the design of continuously operated flexible production plants considering production planning

173 Seiten, Dissertation Technische Universität Dortmund (2017), Softcover, A5

Zusammenfassung / Abstract

The globalized competition in the chemical industry leads to increasing market volatility, product diversification and cost pressure. Especially for a product launch, plant concepts are required for an efficient production and a flexible adaption to changing markets. The concept of continuously operated plants offers the possibility of an efficient production. The realization as a modular plant enables a flexible capacity adaptation. Therefore, the flexibility provided by modular plants complements the approach of production planning to react on changing markets. Additional costs for increasing the flexibility must be balanced with the economic advantages to decide on the design of continuously operated flexible production plants.

For this purpose, a framework integrating production planning is developed to decide on the design of continuously operated, flexible production plants. This framework is applied to evaluate different strategies designing a flexible plant. First, a framework is developed to decide on the capacity range increase for a flexible adaption of the operating load to volatile markets. A production planning method is used to evaluate whether the adjustment of the operating load or the pre-production of product quantities is economically beneficial. For a statistical economic evaluation the value-at-risk method is applied to assess the additional investment that is economically advantageous to increase the capacity range. In a second step, the methodology is extended by an approach to evaluate the expansion strategy of continuously operated modular multi-product plants. Decision tree analysis integrating production planning is applied to decide on the design capacity combined with appropriate expansion strategies. Finally, the methodology is complemented by a production planning method to evaluate design strategies of increasing the capacity range of a plant with an expansion strategy. A capacitated lot-sizing method is developed to optimize the multi-product production on continuously operated parallel production lines with varying operating loads.