Using simulated annealing algorithm for optimization of quay cranes and automated guided vehicles scheduling

Sea port container terminals play an important role in the national and regional economy. The integrated scheduling of handling equipment has been recently investigated in literature to improve the performance of the container terminals. In this paper, an integrated scheduling of quay cranes and automated guided vehicles is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. This model minimizes the makespan of all the loading and unloading tasks for a set of cranes in a scheduling problem. Based on the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm, a scheduling method is proposed to solve the problem in a relatively short period of time. Comparison of the respective results of the mathematical model and the SA algorithm evidently shows acceptable performance of the proposed SA algorithm in finding good solutions for practical scheduling problems. Moreover, the effects of three cooling processes and two sets of control parameters on the best solution of the SA are investigated.

[1]  Der-Horng Lee,et al.  Integrated quay crane and yard truck schedule for inbound containers , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management.

[2]  Kap Hwan Kim,et al.  A dispatching method for automated lifting vehicles in automated port container terminals , 2009, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[3]  Qiang Meng,et al.  Scheduling of two-transtainer systems for loading outbound containers in port container terminals with simulated annealing algorithm , 2007 .

[4]  K. Narayana Rao,et al.  Scheduling of AGVs and machines in FMS with makespan criteria using sheep flock heredity algorithm , 2009 .

[5]  Türkay Dereli,et al.  A HYBRID SIMULATED ANNEALING ALGORITHM FOR SOLVING MULTI-OBJECTIVE CONTAINER-LOADING PROBLEMS , 2010, Appl. Artif. Intell..

[6]  Der-Horng Lee,et al.  The Integrated Yard Truck and Yard Crane Scheduling Problem: Benders' Decomposition-Based Methods , 2010 .

[7]  Henry Y. K. Lau,et al.  Integrated scheduling of handling equipment at automated container terminals , 2008, Ann. Oper. Res..

[8]  Qingcheng Zeng,et al.  Integrating simulation and optimization to schedule loading operations in container terminals , 2009, Comput. Oper. Res..

[9]  Albert P. M. Wagelmans,et al.  DYNAMIC SCHEDULING OF HANDLING EQUIPMENT AT AUTOMATED CONTAINER TERMINALS , 2001 .

[10]  Mostafa Zandieh,et al.  An improved simulated annealing for hybrid flowshops with sequence-dependent setup and transportation times to minimize total completion time and total tardiness , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[11]  B. Suman,et al.  A survey of simulated annealing as a tool for single and multiobjective optimization , 2006, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[12]  Napsiah Ismail,et al.  A STATISTICAL MODEL FOR EXPECTED CYCLE TIME OF SP-AS/RS: AN APPLICATION OF MONTE CARLO SIMULATION , 2008, Appl. Artif. Intell..

[13]  Salwani Abdullah,et al.  Investigating a round robin strategy over multi algorithms in optimising the quality of university course timetables , 2011 .

[14]  K. L. Mak,et al.  Simultaneous Scheduling of Import and Export Containers Handling in Container Terminals , 2009 .

[15]  T. Notteboom.  The Time Factor in Liner Shipping Services , 2006 .

[16]  Kap Hwan Kim,et al.  Berth scheduling by simulated annealing , 2003 .

[17]  Napsiah Ismail,et al.  An optimization technique using hybrid GA-SA algorithm for multi-objective scheduling problem , 2011 .

[18]  Christian Bierwirth,et al.  A survey of berth allocation and quay crane scheduling problems in container terminals , 2010, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[19]  Lilach Nachum,et al.  UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2002: Transnational Corporations and Export Competitiveness, United Nations, Geneva and New York 2002 , 2003 .

[20]  Stefan Voß,et al.  Operations research at container terminals: a literature update , 2007, OR Spectr..

[21]  C.S.P. Rao,et al.  A hybrid multi-objective GA for simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs in FMS , 2006 .

[22]  Po-Han Chen,et al.  Hybrid of genetic algorithm and simulated annealing for multiple project scheduling with multiple resource constraints , 2009 .

[23]  Chien-Chang Chou,et al.  A fuzzy MCDM model of service performance for container ports , 2011 .

[24]  Guilin Dai,et al.  Review of maritime transportation air emission pollution and policy analysis , 2009 .