Throughput Maximisation for Screening Processes

High Throughput Screening (HTS) plants are used for analysis of chemical or biological substances, where, for a large number of sam-ple batches, several operations have to be executed in the same spe-cific time scheme. This project addresses the scheduling problem for HTS processes, i.e. it aims at determining the optimal (in the sense of throughput maximisation) sequence and timing for all operations during a screening run [7, 8, 9, 10]. Similar problems of throughput maximisa-tion arise in other laboratory automation contexts, and one such prob-lem is currently being investigated with a partner from industry.