CC-99-132 AUTOMATING THE SCHEDULING PROCESS

Description:

As part of its PITAGOR initiative, Totalfina has recently implemented the ORION Scheduling System at several of its refineries: the Normandy refinery, near Le Havre, France, the Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) in the U.K., and the Flanders Refinery, in Dunkerque, France. Each implementation includes a comprehensive model of refinery performance including all of the process operations and each of the several hundred refinery tanks. Scheduling decision variables such as crude blending, process unit operating parameters, rundown stream dispositions, etc., are represented in the system and automated to allow the human scheduler to easily and rapidly create, evaluate and revise a schedule. The impact of changed events are immediately reflected, enabling all participants in the scheduling process to decide upon the best response that takes into account the entire refinery scheduling chain.