A number of open loop indicators for the determination of the disturbance rejection capability of a system have been proposed in the literature in the last decade. These tools are useful in screening regulatory process control structures in an early design stage since they are based on minimum modelling requirements. This paper presents mixed-integer linear programming formulations for the efficient determination of the disturbance rejection measures proposed by Skogestad and Wolff (IFAC Workshop on Interactions between Process Design and Process Control (1992) Oxford: Pergamon). Furthermore, an extension of these disturbance rejection measures to nonlinear systems is presented. A close relation between the ideas of steady state flexibility test and index problems (AICHE J 24 (1978) 1021; Comput. Chem. Eng. 11 (1987) 319) and the disturbance rejection measures proposed by Skogestad and Wolff (IFAC Workshop on Interactions between Process Design and Process Control (1992) Oxford: Pergamon) is shown to exist.