Modeling and Heuristic Solutions for Storage Scheduling of Steel Plates in Steel Logistics Park

Steel plates are highly customized according to different customer demands. In this case, the outbound date, the specifications of the steel plates and the distribution of stacks must be simultaneously considered when the steel plates are stored in the yard. Improper storage of steel plates significantly increases the number of shuffles during outbound operations. To overcome the challenge, we propose an efficient steel plate storage scheme based on the actual scenario of existing steel plate distribution in the yard. Firstly, a model for steel plate storage scheduling is established to minimize the number of extra blocking plates. Then, three heuristic algorithms are designed to solve the problem. Comparative experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed method can sufficiently improve the efficiency of steel plates scheduling.