Keep the coffee coming
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Keep the coffee coming A linear programming model was used to assist the company operating the port of Santos in reducing labour costs and planning operations Dayr Reis
Santos is Brazil's main sea-port and its biggest coffee port. The aroma of coffee permeates the city. Cotton, sugar, bananas, castor oil, beef, oranges, hides and manufactured goods are also exported. The city is situated on an alluvial plain on the inner side of the São
(i.e. loading and unloading of ships, and storage) and also
of support operations.
The model would serve as a planning and control tool, while producing periodic statistical information. lt would also be a simulator, aiming at the generation and selection of different
Vicente Island, cut off from the mainland by a tidal
operational strategies. Linear programming (LP) was chosen as most appropriate for the study.
channel. The channel is free from obstacles, andin front of the city it widens into a bay deep enough for the largest vessels.
This article describes briefly the model outputs, inputs and otherfeatures, as well as some of the implementation problems encountered and the advantages and gains for
The docks are six kilometres long and can
accommodate about 50 ships at a time.
the company. (Details of the mathematics, examples of the reports generated by the system and complete data tables are beyond the scope of the article, but interested readers are welcome to contact the author.)
Port operations are highly labour-intensive by nature.
The client company of this study was a government concessionaire responsible for administering and
operating the Santos port facility. The company wished to develop labour productivity studies in order to reduce labour costs, and in addition to study the productivity of equipment and facilities, aiming at a further reduction ¡n operational costs. An external consulting entity was hired
A description of the model The model is supposed to cover the handling of all cargo operations in the port of Santos. Some examples of the cassification of nature of cargo and of the type of operations to be performed are presented in Tables 1-4,
to do the job. A model was to be created that would capture the relevant elements of the first-line operations
showing, respectively: unloading of ships; loading of
Table 1: Examples of operations - Unloading of ships Operation
Type of cargo
ships; receiving cargo directly from ships into warehouses; and complementary services.
Destination
A-1
General cargo
warehouse/patio/street
A-2
General cargo
vehicles
A-3
Refrigerated fruits; frozen meats or similar
cold storage plant (freezers)
B-1
General cargo
vehicles/warehouse/patio
Solids in bulk, using grabs in 3, 5 or 6 ton cranes
ground/vehicles
B-2
Coffee in sacks
trucks/street
B-3
Sacks in general, using ship cranes
trucks
A-9
Cereals in bulk, using pneumatic equipment
freight cars
B-6
open vehicles
A-11
Containers, flats and pallets, when full
vehicles/warehouse/patio
Pallets; palletized cargo; other cargo with appropriate
Data Loading...
