A Novel Proactive–Reactive Scheduling Approach for the Quay Crane Scheduling Problem: A VUCA Perspective

Abstract

As the port operations are becoming volatile and uncertain, container handling in the port terminals is becoming more complex due to the rising customer demands. Further, scheduling interruptions create ambiguity in real-time operations. Therefore, the present study focused on the container terminal’s ability to schedule and mitigate real-time probabilistic fluctuations. This article proposes a novel proactive–reactive scheduling approach to solve the quay crane (QC) scheduling problem in the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity world, using equipment reliability functions. The proposed approach is based on a novel reliability assessment formula based on practical facts, including the reliability probabilistic distribution of QC and the container workload variability. Moreover, a proactive iterated local search algorithm is proposed and incorporated with the reliability formula to solve the QC scheduling under fluctuations. The efficiency of the algorithm is illustrated through comparison to an exact method. Real-time reactive simulations that compare the schedules before and after the Go-Live phase show the noteworthy improvement derived from generating plans using the proposed proactive approach compared to an alternative nonproactive one.