Multi-objective simultaneous stowage and load planning for a container ship with container rehandle in yard stacks

The efficiency of a maritime container terminal primarily depends on the smooth and orderly process of handling containers, especially during the ship’s loading process. The stowage and associated loading plans are mainly determined by two criteria: ship stability and the minimum number of container rehandles required. The latter is based on the fact that most container ships have a cellular structure and that export containers are piled up in a yard. These two basic criteria are often in conflict. This paper is concerned with the ship’s container stowage and loading plans that satisfy these two criteria. The GM, list and trim are taken into account for the stability measurements. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective integer programming. In order to obtain a set of noninferior solutions of the problem, the weighting method is employed. A wide variety of numerical experiments demonstrated that solutions by this formulation are useful and applicable in practice.