Modeling and solution for the ship stowage planning problem of coils in the steel industry

Abstract

We consider a ship stowage planning problem where steel coils with known destination ports are to be loaded onto a ship. The coils are to be stowed on the ship in rows. Due to their heavy weight and cylindrical shape, coils can be stowed in at most two levels. Different from stowage problems in previous studies, in this problem there are no fixed positions on the ship for the coils due to their different sizes. At a destination port, if a coil to be unloaded is not at a top position, those blocking it need to be shuffled. In addition, the stability of ship has to be maintained after unloading at each destination port. The objective for the stowage planning problem is to minimize a combination of ship instability throughout the entire voyage, the shuffles needed for unloading at the destination ports, and the dispersion of coils to be unloaded at the same destination port. We formulate the problem as a novel mixed integer linear programming model. Several valid inequalities are derived to help reducing solution time. A tabu search (TS) algorithm is developed for the problem with the initial solution generated using a construction heuristic. To evaluate the proposed TS algorithm, numerical experiments are carried out on problem instances of three different scales by comparing it with a model‐based decomposition heuristic, the classic TS algorithm, the particle swarm optimization algorithm, and the manual method used in practice. The results show that for small problems, the proposed algorithm can generate optimal solutions. For medium and large practical problems, the proposed algorithm outperforms other methods. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 564–581, 2015

Solving the unit-load pre-marshalling problem in block stacking storage systems with multiple access directions

“…Shuffling problems in the steel industry also bear resemblance to the UPMP. Tang et al (2012) categorizes these problems into plate shuffling problems (e.g., König, Lübbecke, Möhring, Schäfer, and Spenke (2007); Tang, Liu, Rong, and Yang (2002)) and coil shuffling problems (e.g., Tang, Liu, Yang, Li, and Li (2015); Tang et al (2012); Zäpfel and Wasner (2006)). The slab pre-marshalling problem (SPMP) introduced by Ge et al (2020) deals with sorting steel slabs during idle times.…”

A Two-Phase Stowage Approach for Passenger-Cargo RoRo Ship Based on 2D-KP: Coping With Complex Rotation and Safe Navigation Constraints

“…Constraint (11) ensures that all vehicles at MSPP must be placed in the cabin and part of vehicles at SSPP is selected to be placed. |I 1 | is uniquely determined by inequality (12).…”

“…Umeda et al [11] used simulated annealing (SA) algorithm to solve the ship stowage problem of steel products. In Tang et al [12], the stowage problem where the steel coils without fixed positions on the ship was considered, and a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and a tabu search algorithm is developed for the problem. On the RoRo transportation, stowage problem also plays a key role.…”

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“…Other related work comes from applications to general or specialised cargo such as container ships. Thus, Tang et al modelled the ship stowage planning problem of steel coils stacked in two layers and carried on cargo ships [9]. The objective was to determine the location of variable size coils of steel on the ship, subject to ship stability and cargo handling efficiency.…”