From process control to supply chain management: An overview of integrated decision making strategies

- An overview of integrated decision-making strategies in the process industry is presented.
- Optimization approaches for supply chain management are reviewed, including mathematical, simulation and hybrid techniques.
- A literature review of the integration of planning and scheduling is presented.
- A literature review of the work on integrated scheduling and process control is presented.
- Challenges on the optimization of process operations through integration of decision making strategies are identified.

Optimal decision-making in a process industry is fundamental in order to guarantee optimality of operations and increase profits and performance of a company. Decision-making occurs at different levels, from process control to supply chain management. Traditionally, these decisions have been considered individually, with little or no interaction between each other. However, an integrated decision-making framework can guarantee solutions closer to optimality. Such integration usually results in complex and large scale problems that are difficult to solve. We provide an overview of integrated decision-making strategies and review recent advances in the area, highlighting promising works as well as the main challenges that have yet to be overcome.