Lessons learned from developing and implementing refinery production scheduling technologies

Abstract

An increasing number of novel and highly specialized computer-aided decision-making technologies for short-term production scheduling in oil refineries has emerged and evolved over the past two decades, thereby encouraging refiners to permanently rethink the way the refining business is operated and managed. In this report, we discuss the key lessons learned from one of the pioneering, yet daring, enterprise-wide programs entirely implemented in an energy company devoted to developing and implementing an advanced refinery production scheduling (RPS) technology, i.e., the RPS system of Petrobras. Apart from mathematical and information technology issues, the long-term sustainability of a successful RPS project is, we argue, the outcome of a virtuous cycle grounded on permanent actions devoted to improving technical education inside the organization, reinspecting organizational cultures and operational paradigms, and developing working processes.