Efficient bulk maritime logistics for the supply and delivery of multiple chemicals

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a novel unit-slot mixed integer linear programming (MILP) continuous-time model for a ship planning problem, in which a heterogeneous fleet of ships is used to supply and deliver multiple chemical products between production and consumption sites. We incorporate many real-life features such as multiple pickups and deliveries of multiple products using ships with multiple dedicated compartments, variable load/discharge quantities, multiple jetties, and fixed setup time for each product, etc. Furthermore, our model ensures product inventories at any time to meet their minimum and maximum capacities. Four examples are solved to illustrate the superiority and efficiency of our proposed formulation. © 2009 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.