ST MODEL IMPLEMENTATION ON SHORT TERM OPERATIONS' PLANNING AT BULK TERMINALS

This paper focuses on a bulk terminal short term operations planning problem faced by the port management in tactical decision making. Loading and discharging of ship cargo, cargo stocking, maintenance and service of facility equipment are regular operations of a sea port's bulk terminal. Their organization is subject to difficult-to-predict or unforeseen influences. The challenge that port management faces in day to day operations is in making the best possible plan with scheduled duration of operations/states and transition instants, considering various internal and external factors influencing terminal performance. A states and transitions model is used to derive effective solutions for obtaining states order and states transition time of a bulk terminal, with the objective of minimizing operational costs. Behavior of the terminal is tested with stochastic and deterministic methods.