ABSTRACT
Iron ore is the main Brazilian exported commodity, the mineral and steel industries are searching for efficient production, cost reductions and higher profitability. This paper presents an optimization model to support the storage stockyard management, which integrate the train discharging and ships loading operations, reducing operating times, maximizing the stockyards occupation, and increasing the volume shipped in a period. An operational investigation was carried out to identify the main rules and restrictions of a terminal. Linear Programming (LP) techniques were applied to integrate a strategic and a tactical model. Furthermore, perform the scheduling of trains and ship berthing to minimize non-operational time, providing information to ensure stockpiles while the ship is loaded, consequently minimizing total ship service time. The results are satisfactory, however, for large instances and high levels of operations detail, a combination of heuristic methods is recommended to optimize processing time, a common difficulty for the topic.
