A Look-Ahead Dispatching Method for Automated Guided Vehicles in Automated Port Container Terminals
- 1 May 2004
- journal article
- Published by Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in Transportation Science
- Vol. 38 (2), 224-234
- https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.1030.0082
Abstract
To reduce delay in ship operations in automated container terminals, it is important to make different types of container handling equipment to operate harmoniously during this operation. Delivery operations by automated guided vehicles (AGVs) play an important role for synchronizing operations of container cranes with yard cranes. This study discusses how to dispatch AGVs by utilizing information about locations and times of future delivery tasks. A mixed-integer programming model is provided for assigning optimal delivery tasks to AGVs. A heuristic algorithm is suggested for overcoming the excessive computational time needed for solving the mathematical model. Objective values and computational times of the heuristic algorithm are compared with those of the optimizing method. To test performances of the heuristic algorithm, a simulation study is performed by considering the uncertainties of various operation times and the number of future delivery tasks for looking ahead. Also, the performance of the heuristic algorithm is compared with those of other dispatching rules.Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Integrated scheduling of material handling and manufacturing activities for just-in-time production of complex assembliesInternational Journal of Production Research, 1998
- AGV systems with multi-load carriers: Basic issues and potential benefitsJournal of Manufacturing Systems, 1997
- An Autonomous Guided Vehicle for Cargo Handling ApplicationsThe International Journal of Robotics Research, 1996
- A tabu search heuristic for the multiprocessor scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup timesInternational Journal of Production Economics, 1996
- A Time Window Approach to Simultaneous Scheduling of Machines and Material Handling System in an FMSOperations Research, 1995
- An Optimal Algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Time WindowsOperations Research, 1995
- A review of research on AGVS vehicle managementEngineering Costs and Production Economics, 1991
- Pull versus push strategy for automated guided vehicle load movement in a batch manufacturing systemJournal of Manufacturing Systems, 1987
- Characterization of automatic guided vehicle dispatching rulesInternational Journal of Production Research, 1984
- A state-of-the-art survey of dispatching rules for manufacturing job shop operationsInternational Journal of Production Research, 1982