Ship unloading plan and yard allocation decisions for a bulk terminal

Operational planning in bulk terminals is a highly complex decision-making process, involving ships' lay time and demurrage costs. Poor yard allocation increases operational costs and lowers occupation rates. The decision-making process must consider two main operational features. The first is the ship-unloading plan for different combinations of product types, clients and quantities. The second is cargo placement it? yard stacks, each of which will be unloaded after some days, when the customers start to retrieve their cargo. This makes the decision more complex,for one must also forecast free areas for unloading the ship. The Praia Mole Terminal is a bulk terminal specialised in coal, iron ore, sulphur and other cargo. Approximately 30% of the ships are CAPESIZE with 9 holds, 60% are PANAMAX with 7 holds, and the remaining ships are smaller than PANAMAX. Usually a ship brings different cargo for several customers. In order to obtain the best operational level decision, simulation was used to model the decision-making process.