nach oben

2009 | Buch

Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Seaside Operations Planning in Container Terminals

verfasst von: Frank Meisel

Verlag: Physica-Verlag HD

Buchreihe : Contributions to Management Science

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Über dieses Buch

1. 1 Motivation and Scope of Research Container terminals in seaports constitute interfaces between sea and land tra- port of goods in global transport chains. These logistics facilities face an increasing demandof service capacity,as is re ected by a tremendousgrowthin the worldwide container transshipments per year. For example, the top 20 terminals in the world showed an average relative increase of 14% with respect to the number of handled container units from 2006 to 2007, see Port of Hamburg Marketing (2008). In spite of this development, competition is high among container terminals within the same region. A terminal’s customers, rst and foremost the vessel op- ators, expect a high level of service quality where reliability is one of the most importantdimensions,seeWiegmansetal. (2001). Regardingtheserviceofavessel, reliability means to realize all transshipment operations within its projected service time interval. The reliability of terminal operations impacts the reliability of v- sels in meeting their liner schedules. According to Notteboom (2006) unexpected waiting times of vessels before berthing and unexpected low transshipment prod- tivity at terminals are responsible for about 86% of liner schedule disturbances, see Fig. 1. 1. Currently, many terminal operators counteract this situation by extending their transshipment capacities. They build new terminals or enlarge existing ter- nals and purchase new or upgrade existing equipment. Ilmer (2005) provides an overview of current projects for building terminal capacity in northern Europe.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Container terminals in seaports constitute interfaces between sea and land transport of goods in global transport chains. These logistics facilities face an increasing demand of service capacity, as is reflected by a tremendous growth in the worldwide container transshipments per year. For example, the top twenty terminals in the world showed an average relative increase of 14 percent with respect to the number of handled container units from 2006 to 2007, see Port of Hamburg Marketing (2008).

In spite of this development, competition is high among container terminals within the same region. A terminal’s customers, first and foremost the vessel operators, expect a high level of service quality where reliability is one of the most important dimensions, see Wiegmans et al. (2001). Regarding the service of a vessel, reliability means to realize all transshipment operations within its projected service time interval. The reliability of terminal operations impacts the reliability of vessels in meeting their liner schedules. According to Notteboom (2006) unexpected waiting times of vessels before berthing and unexpected low transshipment productivity at terminals are responsible for about 86% of liner schedule disturbances, see Fig. 1.1. Currently, many terminal operators counteract this situation by extending their transshipment capacities. They build new terminals or enlarge existing terminals and purchase new or upgrade existing equipment. Ilmer (2005) provides an overview of current projects for building terminal capacity in northern Europe. The outlined projects promise a doubling of transshipment capacity from the year 2004 to the year 2010, but environmental and socio-economic issues often limit these ambitious expansion plans. For terminals that are unable to realize capacity building investments, the only alternative to enhance service quality is to increase the productive utilization of the existing resources.

Frank Meisel

2. Maritime Container Transport

This chapter provides an introduction to the maritime container transport industry. Section 2.1 briefly describes the development of maritime container transport and the observed trends within the last decades. The organization of container transports is explained in Section 2.2. In Section 2.3 the layout of a container terminal and the available equipment are described.

Frank Meisel

3. Operational Planning Problems

In this chapter the operational planning problems of a CT are informally described. In Section 3.1 a distinction of planning levels is discussed. The planning of seaside operations, internal operations, landside operations, and workforce utilization are described in Sections 3.2 to 3.5, respectively.

Frank Meisel

4. RelatedWork on Seaside Operations Planning

Due to the variety of technical equipments and terminal layouts, research has produced a multitude of optimization models for seaside operations planning in container terminals. This chapter provides literature surveys for the operations planning problems being in the focus of the thesis. Section 4.1 provides a classification scheme and a literature survey for BAP and QCAP formulations. Section 4.2 provides a classification scheme and a literature survey for QCSP formulations. Section 4.3 describes relationships of the seaside planning problems and well known Operations Research problems.

Frank Meisel

5. Integration Concepts for Seaside Operations Planning

In this chapter different concepts for an integrated solution of seaside planning problems are discussed. Section 5.1 assesses a sequential solution process of the focused problems and provides a theoretical framework for an integrated solution of optimization problems. Following these ideas, a survey of published integration concepts for the seaside planning problems is provided in Section 5.2. The particular integration concept to investigate in the thesis is outlined in Section 5.3.

Frank Meisel

6. Berth Allocation and Quay Crane Assignment

The new concept for integrated seaside operations planning comprises a deep integration of the BAP and the QCAP. The resulting problem, namely the Berth Allocation and Crane Assignment Problem (BACAP), is studied within this chapter. The first mathematical formulation of the combined problem of berth allocation and crane assignment has been presented by Park and Kim (2003). A new problem formulation has been provided by Meisel and Bierwirth (2009), which incorporates QC productivity determining effects. This new model is presented in Section 6.1 and solution methods are described in Section 6.2. Computational tests follow in Section 6.3. Section 6.4 concludes the BACAP study.

Frank Meisel

7. Quay Crane Scheduling

This chapter deals with the QCSP on the basis of container groups. It is studied as an isolated problem here and functionally integrated into the BACAP in the next chapter. Crane scheduling for container groups has been introduced by Kim and Park (2004). As noted by Moccia et al. (2006), the original QCSP model provided by Kim and Park shows an inaccuracy regarding the detection of crane interference. Unfortunately, even reworked problem formulations still tolerate certain cases of crane interference. A corrected problem formulation and a heuristic solution method have been provided by Bierwirth and Meisel (2006). The model and the heuristic are presented in Section 7.1 and Section 7.2, respectively. In Section 7.3 the QCSP is extended by incorporation of time windows for the cranes. Necessary modifications of the mathematical formulation and the solution method are described. Computational tests follow in Section 7.4. The study on the QCSP is concluded in Section 7.5.

Frank Meisel

8. Integration of Quay Crane Scheduling into the BACAP

Having investigated the BACAP, the QCSP, and the QCSPTW in detail in previous chapters, it is now turned to an integration of these problems. This study completes the realization of the integration concept that has been designed in Chapter 5. Section 8.1 outlines the functional integrations of crane scheduling into the berth planning phase in the context of practical application. Sections 8.2 and 8.3 describe the integration of QCSP and QCSPTW into the BACAP, respectively. Computational tests follow in Section 8.4. The study on integrated operations planning is concluded in Section 8.5.

Frank Meisel

9. Conclusions

The thesis deals with seaside operations planning in seaport container terminals. The investigated planning problems are the Berth Allocation Problem (BAP), the Quay Crane Assignment Problem(QCAP), and theQuay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP). From solving these problems, berthing times, berthing positions, and crane capacity are assigned to vessels, and quay crane schedules are determined. The decisions are closely interrelated due to the strong dependence of vessel handling times on the assignment and scheduling of cranes. Nevertheless, the planning problems are predominantly considered isolated in scientific research. In practice they are solved in a sequential solution process, which is hardly able to respect the interrelations and thus, threatens a good utilization of terminal resources and a corresponding service quality. The aim of this research is to overcome these weaknesses by providing an integrated solution approach for seaside operations planning.

The first scientific contribution of the thesis to container terminal operations management is the provision of classification schemes for the various BAP, QCAP, and QCSP formulations presented in the literature. Using these schemes, all approaches can be classified and the essential differences are uncovered.

Frank Meisel

Backmatter

Titel: Seaside Operations Planning in Container Terminals
verfasst von: Frank Meisel
Verlag: Physica-Verlag HD
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-7908-2191-8
Print ISBN: 978-3-7908-2190-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2191-8

Springer Professional

Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

2. Maritime Container Transport

3. Operational Planning Problems

4. RelatedWork on Seaside Operations Planning

5. Integration Concepts for Seaside Operations Planning

6. Berth Allocation and Quay Crane Assignment

7. Quay Crane Scheduling

8. Integration of Quay Crane Scheduling into the BACAP

9. Conclusions

Backmatter

Premium Partner