A novel rule-based model for multi-stage multi-product scheduling problem (MMSP) in batch plants with parallel units is proposed. The scheduling problem is decomposed into two sub-problems of order assignment and order sequencing. Firstly, hierarchical scheduling strategy is presented for solving the former sub-problem, where the multi-stage multi-product batch process is divided into multiple sequentially connected single process stages, and then the production of orders are arranged in each single stage by using forward order assignment strategy and backward order assignment strategy respectively according to the feature of scheduling objective. Line-up competition algorithm (LCA) is presented to find out optimal order sequence and order assignment rule, which can minimize total flow time or maximize total weighted process time. Computational results show that the proposed approach can obtain better solutions than those of the literature for all scheduling problems with more than 10 orders. Moreover, with the problem size increasing, the solutions obtained by the proposed approach are improved remarkably. The proposed approach has the potential to solve large size MMSP. (C) 2017 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.