Abstract
The Hunter Valley coal export supply chain in New South Wales, Australia, is of great importance to the Australian economy. Effectively managing its logistics, however, is challenging, because it is a complex system, covering a large geographic area and comprising a rail network, three coal terminals, and a port, and has many stakeholders, e.g., mining companies, port authorities, coal terminal operators, rail infrastructure providers, and above rail operators. We develop a matheuristic logistics planning system which integrates, amongst other concerns, train scheduling, stockpile management, and vessel scheduling. Different components of the supply chain are modeled at different levels of granularity. An extensive computational study has generated insights into the bottlenecks in the logistics system, which are used to guide changes in operating policies and future investments. The planning system uses a solver-independent modeling technology. This allowed us to observe differences between the performance of constraint programming and mixed-integer programming in the context of a rolling-horizon approach, due to custom search heuristics.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
We adjusted the parameters of our model accordingly to compute the results published in (Rocha de Paula et al. 2019). LNS was switched on.
References
Aggoun, A., Beldiceanu, N.: Extending CHIP in order to solve complex scheduling and placement problems. Math. Comput. Model. 17(7), 57–73 (1993)
Belov, G., Stuckey, P.J., Tack, G., Wallace, M.: Improved linearization of Constraint Programming models. In: Rueher M (ed) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, pp. 49–65. Springer (2016)
Belov, G., Boland, N., Savelsbergh, M.W.P., Stuckey, P.J.: Local search for a cargo assembly planning problem. In: Simonis, H. (ed.) Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 8451, pp. 159–175. Springer, Berlin (2014)
Boland, N.L., Savelsbergh, M.W.P.: Optimizing the Hunter Valley coal chain. In: Gurnani, H., Mehrotra, A., Ray, S. (eds.) Supply Chain Disruptions, pp. 275–302. Springer, London (2012)
Boland, N., Savelsbergh, M., Waterer, H.: A decision support tool for generating shipping data for the Hunter Valley coal chain. Comput. Oper. Res. 53, 54–67 (2015)
Copil, K., Wörbelauer, M., Meyr, H., Tempelmeier, H.: Simultaneous lotsizing and scheduling problems: a classification and review of models. OR Spectrum 39(1), 1–64 (2017)
Ernst, A.T., Oğuz, C., Singh, G., Taherkhani, G.: Mathematical models for the berth allocation problem in dry bulk terminals. J. Sched. 20(5), 459–473 (2017)
Fattahi, M., Govindan, K., Keyvanshokooh, E.: A multi-stage stochastic program for supply chain network redesign problem with price-dependent uncertain demands. Comput. Oper. Res. 100, 314–332 (2018)
Fung, J., Singh, G., Zinder, Y.: Capacity planning in supply chains of mineral resources. Inf. Sci. 316, 397–418 (2015)
Google: OR-Tools– Google optimization tools (2019). https://github.com/google/or-tools
Gurobi Optimization, Inc: Gurobi optimizer reference manual (2019). http://www.gurobi.com
HVCCC: HVCC declared capacity (2014)
HVCCC: Hunter Valley Coal Chain Coordinator’s website (2019). http://www.hvccc.com.au/. Accessed 27 Aug 2019
IBM Software: IBM ILOG CPLEX optimizer (2019)
Joslin, D.E., Clements, D.P.: “Squeaky Wheel” optimization. J. Artif. Int. Res. 10(1), 353–373 (1999)
Kalinowski, T., Kapoor, R., Savelsbergh, M.W.P.: Scheduling reclaimers serving a stock pad at a coal terminal. J. Sched. 20(1), 85–101 (2017)
Kelareva, E., Tierney, K., Kilby, P.: CP methods for scheduling and routing with time-dependent task costs. EURO J. Comput. Optim. 2(3), 147–194 (2014)
Leite, J.M.L.G., Arruda, E.F., Bahiense, L., Marujo, L.G.: Modeling the integrated mine-to-client supply chain: a survey. Int. J. Min. Reclam. Environ. 1–47 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/17480930.2019.1579693
Menezes, G.C., Mateus, G.R., Ravetti, M.G.: A branch and price algorithm to solve the integrated production planning and scheduling in bulk ports. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 258, 926–937 (2017)
Moons, S., Ramaekers, K., Caris, A., Arda, Y.: Integrating production scheduling and vehicle routing decisions at the operational decision level: a review and discussion. Comput. Ind. Eng. 104, 224–245 (2017)
Nethercote, N., Stuckey, P., Becket, R., Brand, S., Duck, G., Tack, G.: MiniZinc: Towards a standard CP modelling language. In: Bessiere, C. (ed.) Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, vol. 4741, pp. 529–543. Springer, LNCS (2007)
Ohrimenko, O., Stuckey, P., Codish, M.: Propagation via lazy clause generation. Constraints 14(3), 357–391 (2009)
Opturion Pty Ltd: Opturion CPX user’s guide: version 1.0.2. (2013). www.opturion.com/cpx.html. Accessed 22 May 2015
Peng, H., Zhou, M., Liu, M., Zhang, Y., Huang, Y.: A dynamic optimization model of an integrated coal supply chain system and its application. Min. Sci. Technol. (China) 19(6), 842–846 (2009)
Reisi Ardali, M.: Optimising throughput in the Hunter Valley coal chain using integer programming techniques. PhD thesis, University of Newcastle, Australia (2015)
Rocha de Paula, M., Boland, N., Ernst, A.T., Mendes, A., Savelsbergh, M.: Throughput optimisation in a coal export system with multiple terminals and shared resources. Comput. Ind. Eng. 134, 37–51 (2019)
Sabet, E., Yazdani, B., Kian, R., Galanakis, K.: A strategic and global manufacturing capacity management optimisation model: a scenario-based multi-stage stochastic programming approach. Omega pp. 1–20 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2019.01.004
Savelsbergh, M.W.P., Smith, O.: Cargo assembly planning. Eur. J. Transp. Sci. Logist. 4, 321–354 (2015)
Schulte, C., Tack, G., Lagerkvist, M.Z.: Modeling and programming with Gecode (2019). www.gecode.org. Accessed 8 Jan 2020
Schutt, A., Feydy, T., Stuckey, P.J., Wallace, M.G.: Explaining the cumulative propagator. Constraints 16(3), 250–282 (2011)
Shaw, P.: Using constraint programming and local search methods to solve vehicle routing problems. In: International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, pp. 417–431. Springer (1998)
Singh, G., Sier, D., Ernst, A.T., Gavriliouk, O., Oyston, R., Giles, T., Welgama, P.: A mixed integer programming model for long term capacity expansion planning: a case study from The Hunter Valley Coal Chain. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 220(1), 210–224 (2012)
Singh, G., Ernst, A.T., Baxter, M., Sier, D.: Rail schedule optimisation in the Hunter Valley coal chain. RAIRO-Oper Res 49(2), 413–434 (2015)
Stuckey, P.J., Feydy, T., Schutt, A., Tack, G., Fischer, J.: The MiniZinc Challenge 2008–2013. AI Mag. 35(2), 55–60 (2014)
Unsal, O., Oguz, C.: An exact algorithm for integrated planning of operations in dry bulk terminals. Transp. Res. Part E Logist. Transp. Rev. 126(C), 103–121 (2019)
Xie, F., Potts, C.N., Bektaş, T.: Iterated local search for workforce scheduling and routing problems. J. Heuristics 23(6), 471–500 (2017)
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the strategic planning team at the HVCCC for many insightful and helpful suggestions, as well as to Opturion Ltd for providing their version of the CPX solver under an academic license.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The research presented here was supported by ARC linkage Grant LP110200524.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Belov, G., Boland, N.L., Savelsbergh, M.W.P. et al. Logistics optimization for a coal supply chain. J Heuristics 26, 269–300 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-019-09435-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-019-09435-8