Enhancing the decision making process for paper mill schedulers

In the paper, a new decision support system for scheduling paper manufacturing and distribution is discussed. In contrast to earlier approaches, the system considers multiple scheduling objectives and multiple stages of papermaking and distribution simultaneously in a global multicriteria optimization framework. Multiple scheduling alternatives have been generated using several algorithms based on linear/integer programming, network flow method and heuristics that allowed to maximize profitability, product quality, and minimize manufacturing disruptions.