The energy scheduling problem: Industrial case-study and constraint propagation techniques

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2010.09.030
• Publication Date: 2010-10-02T09:16:51Z
• Authors: Christian Artigues; Pierre Lopez; Alain Haït
• Keywords: Energy constraints; Production scheduling; [INFO.INFO-RO]Computer Science [cs]/Operations Research [math.OC]; 0211 other engineering and technologies; [INFO.INFO-RO]Computer Science [cs]/Operations Research [cs.RO]; 02 engineering and technology; Génie des procédés; Constraint propagation; Energetic reasoning; 004

This paper deals with production scheduling involving energy constraints, typically electrical energy. We start by an industrial case-study for which we propose a two-step integer/constraint programming method. From the industrial problem we derive a generic problem, the Energy Scheduling Problem (EnSP). We propose an extension of specific resource constraint propagation techniques to efficiently prune the search space for EnSP solving. We also present a branching scheme to solve the problem via tree search. Finally, computational results are provided.