Resource allocation

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION In the following detailed description of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying Drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the present invention may be practiced.
It should be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
The present invention provides methods useful for resource allocation in situations when overall customer demand can be met.
That is, the present invention assumes sufficient resources exist to meet overall customer demand.
Typically, the decision as to whether the customers' demands can be met is made after analyzing the customer order data as well as process and inventory operations data.
Precisely how the decision of whether customer demand can be met is not critical to the present invention.
The present invention will be explained in the context of storing products and byproducts into storage tanks as frequently occurs in the petrochemical industry.
However, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited by this application, but can be advantageously used in other applications.
Frequently, manufacturers in the petrochemical industry have large numbers of storage tanks for storing products and byproducts of various processes.
These storage tanks are sometimes collectively referred to as tank farms.
The tanks are resources that need to be allocated in order to manufacture all the products needed to meet customer demand.
For example, the production of lubricating oil may require a number of process steps.
The first step may require distillation of a raw material and this distillation may result in four different byproducts being formed.
Each of these four different byproducts would need to be stored in four different storage tanks.
Processing of these four byproducts may produce additional products or byproducts that also need to be stored in storage tanks