Applications of Multi-Objective Optimization to Industrial Processes: A Literature Review

Industrial processes provide several of the products and services required for society. However, each industry faces different challenges from different perspectives, all of which must be reconciled to obtain profitable, productive, controllable, safe and sustainable processes. In this context, multi-objective optimization has become a powerful tool to aid the decision-making mechanism in the synthesis, design, operation and control of such processes. The solution to the mathematical models provides the necessary tools to asses the system performance in terms of different metrics and evaluate the trade-offs between the objectives in conflict. The number of applications of multi- objective optimization in industrial processes is ample and each application has its own challenges. In the present literature review, a broad panorama of the applications in multi-objective optimization is presented, including future perspectives and open questions that still need to be addressed.