WCSE

Solving the Vessel Slot Planning Problem for 40’ Containers Using a Multi-stage Rule-based Heuristic

Abstract— Container vessel stowage planning is an important and influential decision problem that affects the containers’ handling operations and the vessel’s berthing time. The stowage planning problem is a complex one that can be solved with a successful decomposition approach, where the problem is decomposed into two stages. The slot planning problem is considered the second stage of that approach. A solution approach with multiple stages was developed, each stage is based on a rule-based heuristic, and additionally, each stage has its objective either to minimize/eliminate a constraint violation or, improve the objective function. The computational results elaborate on the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed heuristic. The 127 examined industrial instances were all solved to optimality except one case.

Index Terms— Stowage planning problem, Slot planning problem, Rule-based heuristics.

Dalia Rashed
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST), Egypt; Production Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt.
Amr Eltawil
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST), Egypt
Mohamed Gheith
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST), Egypt; Production Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt.

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Cite: Dalia Rashed, Amr Eltawil, Mohamed Gheith, " Solving the Vessel Slot Planning Problem for 40' Containers Using a Multi-stage Rule-based Heuristic, " WCSE 2022 Spring Event: 2022 9th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Applications, pp. 1737-1751, Sanya, China, April 15-18, 2022.