BATCHSPC is a computer interface designed for the application of the models developed by Gary
Kocis and I.E. Grossmann (1988) and V. Voudouris and I.E. Grossmann (1992) for the optimal
design of multiproduct batch plants. The plant consist of (M) processing stages where fixed amounts
(Q) of (N) products must be manufactured. The design problem consists of finding the number of
parallel units per stage, their sizes and for each product the batch sizes and cycle times that
correspond to the minimum investment costs.

BATCHSPC considers two cases for the unit sizes:

Continuous sizes model
Standard sizes model

Both cases assume the following :

Single product campaigns
Batch processing time is independent of batch sizes

This interface is written in language C and it is implemented on Windows NT, on IBM RS6000, HP and
SUN (SunOS and Solaris) workstations. The way this interface works is through different menus; it
is flexible and easy to use. Given the data of the problem, BATCHSPC creates a new GAMS file
containing the model equations and optimizes the problem using subroutines of DICOPT++ for the
continuous sizes model and OSL, CPLEX or XPRESS for the standard sizes model.

DICOPT++ ( DIscrete and Continuos OPTimizer ) was developed by J. Viswanathan and Ignacio
E. Grossmann at the Engineering Research Center (EDRC ) of the Carnegie Mellon University . It is
based on the extensions of the outer-approximation algorithm for equality relaxation strategy.

BATCHSPC has been developed by Beatriz Bolio under the supervision of Ignacio Grossmann .

References for BATCHSPC:

Voudouris, V. T. and I. E. Grossmann, Mixed-Integer Linear Programming
Reformulations for Batch Process Design with Discrete Equipment Sizes, I&EC
RESEARCH, 1992, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 1315-1325.

Bolio, Beatriz, Guidelines for BATCHSPC Interface, Carnegie Mellon University,
Engineering Design Research Center, Pittsburgh, PA.