Contents 1. INTRODUCTION
Since the container has been introduced to the world trade for thirty years, it soon becomes a standard in the worldwide transportation. An ever increasing number of goods are unloaded and loaded onto vast ships carried to their respective destinations throughout the world. Container terminals are continuously facing the increasing growth of container throughput and more large ships in shorter time. This leads to the necessity to use the highly expensive terminal equipments such as tugboat, QC (Quay Cranes), AGV (Automatic Guided Vehicle) as efficiently as possible. At present equipment scheduling is no longer a static optimization problem. Practical scheduling is dynamic, uncertain and often unpredictable due to the continuous arrival of new and unforeseen orders. These characteristics limit the effectiveness of conventional scheduling approaches. A key factor of success is simulation of process and optimization of scheduling using heuristic method.
