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Scheduling small number of quay cranes with non-interference constraint

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Abstract

Quay crane (QC) scheduling significantly affects the turn-around time of a container vessel, and it plays an important role in container terminal operation. Lee et al. (An approximation algorithm for quay crane scheduling with non-interference constraints in port container terminals, Presented at Tristan VI, Phuket, June 10–15, 2007) present a 2-approximation algorithm for QC scheduling problem with non-interference constraint. In this paper we revisit Lee’s heuristic for the scenario with small number of QCs, and prove that it is 4/3 and 5/3-approximation for the case with two QCs and the case with three QCs respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Prof. Chung-Yee Lee and anonymous referees for their insightful comments. The work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71101106, 71172189, 71090404/71090400), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (No. NCET-12-0824), DHU Distinguished Young Professor Program (No. A201305) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2232013D3-46).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Ming Liu

  2. Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University, Shanghai, 200051, People’s Republic of China

    Feifeng Zheng

  3. Supply Chain Management and Logistics Research, IBM Research-China, Diamond building 19-A, Donbeiwang West Road No.8, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Jinfeng Li

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  1. Ming Liu
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  2. Feifeng Zheng
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  3. Jinfeng Li
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Correspondence to Feifeng Zheng.

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Liu, M., Zheng, F. & Li, J. Scheduling small number of quay cranes with non-interference constraint. Optim Lett 9, 403–412 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-014-0756-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-014-0756-4

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