"Modelling and Optimising Container Terminal Operations"
by MA Nang Laik
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Date:
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13 Feb 2008 (Wednesday)
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Abstract
Large vessels transport 90% of the international cargos. Today, the container terminal operators face greater competition from the competitors and pressures from the shipping lines to reduce the operation cost and minimize the vessel turn around time. Container terminal operations are very sophisticated and closely integrated, optimizing one area of the operations does not guarantee to improve the whole terminal performance, and it may even have a degraded effect on the downstream processes. And yet, it is impossible to solve the whole terminal operations problem in a single model due to its complexity. In this research paper, we model the most important process in the container terminal; container assignment and yard crane deployment problem in a single optimization model. Operations Research (OR) methodology is used to model and solve this problem and heuristic algorithms are developed to find “near” optimal solution within short running time. In addition, we have successfully applied the proposed model in the context of a real case-study. Finally, we developed and implemented a simulation model for container terminal operations using discrete-event simulation. The simulation model is used as a test bed for different operational scenarios.
About the speaker
MA Nang Laik is a Ph.D. candidate in Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London. Her Ph.D. research is on optimisation of container terminal operations and she has presented in a number of international conferences. Her research interests are in simulation, mathematical programming, discrete and stochastic optimisation and network design. Prior to doing her Ph.D., she has worked as a research fellow in National University of Singapore (NUS) on Airline operation simulation project. She also has a few years of industrial experiences working as an IT professional for the busiest container port in the world – Port of Singapore (PSA) and one of the largest banks - DBS bank in Singapore.