I. Interactive input
All the information required in this model is supplied through different questions asked by MULTISTAGE:

QUESTION UNIT USER INPUT
Product   Total number and names
Stages   Total number and names
Price of product $/ton Cost per product
Transition cost $/ton For all products
Transition times hrs For all products
Total demand ton/hrs  
Demand rates % Percentage of total demand per product
Upper Bound of cycle time Hrs  
Investment cost coefficients $/tons*hrs For all products at stages
Processing rates tons/hrs For all products at stages
All values of inverse of conversionare equal to 1.00 (y/n) ? f (n)
.Input new values for all
products at stages
Optimize sequence of products (y/n) ? if (y)
Input initial assignments of products to time slots
.Forbidden assignments of product time slots (y/n) ?
Sequencing ?constraints (y/n)
if (n)
.Input at time slots Fixed sequence of products
Name of the data file to store the input