Hierarchical decision levels integration

To develop and demonstrate the benefits of SC models that allow integrating different business functionalities and hierarchical decision levels. 

Frameworks that reduce the computational complexity of scheduling problems are crucial for the eventual integration of the SC hierarchical decision levels. As mentioned before, that integration permits to find more realistic and feasible solutions for the SC design and planning. What is more, its consideration may improve the resolution of SC incidences and SC visibility. These topics will be further discussed in Chap. 9. 

Notice that for the actual period the proposed algorithm is considering the detailed scheduling, therefore disturbances can be contemplated as frequent as the time bucket utilized in the scheduling formulation. It is also important to point out that we are integrating the three standard hierarchical decision levels however, more decision levels may exist in an organization. In that case, the disturbances can be considered as frequent as the time bucket of the lower decision level in case of using discrete time SC formulations. Continuous time formulations should overcome this drawback. 

Advanced planiung systems. Integrated enterprise-level planning systems supporting hierarchical decision-making. 

Within each of the three general approaches toward process synthesis, key decisions are made about the flowsheet design that have a bearing on the operability characteristics of the plant. For example, in a hierarchical procedure (Ref. 6) we will make decisions about whether the plant is batch or continuous, what types of reactors are used, how material is recycled, what methods and sequences of separation are employed, how much energy integration is involved, etc. In a thermodynamic pinch analysis, we typically start with some flowsheet information, but we must then decide what streams or units to include in the analysis, what level of utilities are involved, what thermodynamic targets are used, etc. In an optimization approach, we must decide the scope of the superstructure to use, what physical data to include, what constraints to apply, what disturbances or uncertainties to consider, what objective function to employ, etc (Ref. 7). 

Advancement in real-time monitoring and diagnosis in integrated SC planning to timely provide and update the SC state information needed by the different decision-making hierarchical levels will contribute to reduce the risk of unexpected events and improve the efficiency of SC planning. 

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