This paper discusses the integration of scheduling and advanced control. It gives a brief overview on the challenges for today's production systems, analyzes the functional hierarchy for plant operations and discusses similarities and differences between the two domains. Possible benefits of a closer integration are outlined and the realization of a tighter integration is discussed. This is followed by practical integration aspects and before the conclusions the main industrial requirements are highlighted. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.