Development of a tool to support the decision-making for port tasks programming

• Grant number: 23/09733-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• End date: January 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering - Operational Research
• Principal Investigator: Afonso Celso Medina
• Grantee: Afonso Celso Medina
• Company: Genoa Soluções Ltda
• CNAE: Desenvolvimento e licenciamento de programas de computador customizáveis
• Associated researchers: André Bergsten Mendes ; Edson Felipe Capovilla Trevisan
• Associated research grant: 19/08984-6 - Development of a tool for the scheduling of port tasks, AP.PIPE
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/07615-5 - Design, implementation and coding of the analytical optimization module, BP.TT; 24/08129-7 - Design, implementation and coding of the meta-heuristic solution module and system integration, BP.TT

Abstract

The commodity export in Brazil and worldwide is characterized by the movement of big cargoes amounts, involving logistic networks with several stages among the production source (mines, producing regions, cargo consolidation terminals, etc.) and export terminals (usually port terminals). The efficient operation of these networks demand, for each stage, the solution of specific scheduling problems, such as: the train and/or truck tables used in transport, the occupation of the stockyards (stockpiles, tanks, storage silos, etc.), the berth tasks (berthing, shipping, unberthing, among other tasks related to the ships), as well as the proper allocation of the necessary human resources. Currently, there are not commercial tools for the solution of these problems in bulk material networks, so that the usual practice is the manual and fragmented solution, meaning that each stage of the network solves its own subproblem, without the support of optimization computational tools and without worrying with a global optimum solution, which encompass the whole chain operation. Taking that into account, a study to verify the viability of a decision-making tool, based on the digital twin concept, makes itself valuable and desirable. The referred tool must be able to schedule tasks in different planning horizons of expedition, offloading, stocking and shipping products in bulk terminals. In order to correctly approach the described problem, fundamental steps suggested by operations research will be followed, just as: formulating the problem, developing the model, retrieving data, solving the model, testing and analyzing the solution, implementing the results and evaluating the recommendations. The viability study will be elaborated for an iron ore export chain, with data provided by Brazilian operators. It's intended to search not just the viability of methods based on mathematic programming, but also heuristics ones. Nonetheless, an extensive research must support the development of the models, while operators from the sector will critically analyze the tool, paralleling it with the expected results. (AU)