Understanding the holistic relationship between refinery production scheduling (RPS) and the cyber-physical production environment with smart scheduling is a new question posed in the study of process systems engineering. Here, we discuss state-of-the-art RSPs in the crude-oil refining field and present examples that illustrate how smart scheduling can impact operations in the high-performing chemical process industry. We conclude that, more than any traditional off-the-shelf RPS solution available today, flexible and integrative specialized modeling platforms will be increasingly necessary to perform decentralized and collaborative optimizations, since they are the technological alternatives closer to the advanced manufacturing philosophy.