ThaiCon :a decision support system for container selection and loading | |
| Author | Paisitt Tangwiwatwong |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.ISE-00-28 |
| Subject(s) | Containers Decision support systems |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. ISE-00-28 |
| Abstract | This study concerns with the container selection and loading problems, in which a shipment of rectangular boxes is required to be packed into containers. Their decisions result in a combination of different sizes of containers that minimizes total transportation cost and a loading pattern of each container that maximizes volume utilization. Since these two problems are inter-related, a combined heuristic procedure of the container selection and the container loading algorithms is proposed. For the container selection algorithm, an integer programming model was formulated as a two-dimensional knapsack problem to be solved by a genetic algorithm. For the container loading procedure, a loading heuristic controlled by the box and point evaluation functions was developed. In order to obtain a good or optimal loading, a genetic algorithm was applied to find the weighted coefficients of these two evaluation functions. Several practical loading aspects were also incorporated into the algorithm. Each box can be loaded following its restriction of orientation as well as priority in loading due to its strength and density. Stack stability can also be determined so that each loaded box is guaranteed to have a firm support underneath. In addition, the container stability constraint may be imposed to ensure loaded balance of each container. Based on the proposed algorithms, a decision support system (DSS), named ThaiCon, was developed, and the experiments were carried out for thilty randomly generated problems. Finally, the effectiveness of ThaiCon was compared with that of different approaches existing in the literature. The comparative results clearly indicate the superiority of ThaiCon in terms of solution quality, and that ThaiCon is capable of generating loading patterns, which yield a high volume utilization under the practical loading constraints. |
| Year | 2000 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Thesis ; no. ISE-00-28 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Advanced Technologies (SAT) |
| Department | Department of Industrial Systems Engineering (DISE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Industrial Systems Engineering (ISE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Anulark Pinnoi; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Nagarur, Nagendra N.;Voratas Kachitvichyanukul; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | H.M. the King of Thailand; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2000 |