A decision support system for the planning of the workload on a grain terminal

Ships, loaded with agricultural products, are handled by GEM at three different terminals in the port of Rotterdam. Each terminal consists of several berths and has both floating equipment and shore equipment. This paper describes the terminal system, the planning process and a menu driven computer planning model of the system. The planning model is split up into a first phase, in which berths are allocated, and a second phase, in which unloading equipment is assigned. The user of the model has the opportunity to manipulate several penalties and assign preferences to berths.