A Benders decomposition-based framework for solving quay crane scheduling problems

Abstract

In this paper, we study the Quay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP) in container terminals. We describe a new mathematical formulation for the QCSP and by addressing the structure of workload assignments we develop an easier way to handle non-crossing constraints. The proposed mathematical formulation is used in an exact solution framework based on logic-based Benders decomposition. The proposed approach decomposes the problem into a workload-assignment master problem and operation-sequence slave subproblems. Logic-based cuts are proposed to ensure the convergence of the approach. Computational results show the effectiveness of the proposed solution approach.