Applications of Global Optimization to Process and Molecular Design

The purpose of this paper is to review some recent results that demonstrate the importance of identifying global optima of MINLP formulations. We present two global optimization “success stories” based on the application of global optimization techniques to two design problems. The first application deals with the design of Just-in-Time flowshops. On a collection of nine problem instances with only four degrees of freedom, global optimization provides solutions that average 17% cost savings compared to designs identified earlier in the literature using local search techniques. The second ∗Address all correspondence to this author (e-mail: [email protected]).