Scheduling the operations of a double-load crane in slab yards |
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Authors: | Guodong Zhao Yun Dong |
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Affiliation: | 1. Key Laboratory of Data Analytics and Optimization for Smart Industry (Northeastern University), Ministry of Education, Chinagascoigne_0509@163.com;3. Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China |
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Abstract: | This paper studies a double-load crane scheduling problem (DLCSP) in steel slab yards. A slab yard stores slabs in stacks. To prepare for use in production, some slabs need to be moved from one place to another. These movement tasks are performed by a double-load crane which can hold up to two slabs simultaneously. Given a set of tasks and possibly precedence relationships among them, the scheduling problem is to allocate the tasks to double-load operations and determine the schedule for the crane to perform the tasks so as to minimise the makespan. The problem is first formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model with variables representing the order of tasks. Based on properties of the problem, it is then reformulated from a crane operation perspective. Computational experiments are carried out on practical data collected from a steel company. The results show that both models can solve practical sized problems optimally, with the second model being more efficient. |
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Keywords: | slab yard crane scheduling double-load crane MILP model |
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