A neighborhood search heuristic for pre-marshalling export containers

Yusin Lee and Shih-Liang Chao

European Journal of Operational Research, 2009, vol. 196, issue 2, 468-475

Abstract: In a yard where export containers are piled up, only those on the top are directly accessible to the stacking equipment. As a result, extra rehandles may occur when lifting them up for loading onto ships. One way to improve operational efficiency is to pre-marshal the containers in such an order that it fits the loading sequence. This paper proposes a model to develop a movement plan to improve the layout of containers in a bay. The proposed heuristic consists of a neighborhood search process, an integer programming model, and three minor subroutines. Each of the components plays a different role in the heuristic. Several sets of testing results demonstrate the performance of the heuristic as well as the contributions of the components.

Keywords: Transportation; Logistics; Export; container; pre-marshalling; Integer; programming; Neighborhood; search (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:196:y:2009:i:2:p:468-475

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