Batch industries, specially the fine chemical industry, need rapid and robust mathematical models that can easily predict the degree of separation of mixtures like volatile organic compounds. Otherwise, in the study of on-line production scheduling and planning of fine chemical plants, there is a lack of quick but reliable and more accurate than black box models in batch distillation. In this work, a robust and rapid mathematical model has been developed, based on mass balance and relative volatility. The model has been extensively tested in a variety of scenarios using a batch distillation pilot plant that has been constructed adhoc. The satisfactory results obtained allows to use the model in real time for a better control and management of batch distillation, resulting in an improved production scheduling/rescheduling of batch processes. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.