Aponte-Rodríguez, Ernesto J.

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A decision support tool for internal tankers logistics in Chemical Industry
(2010) Aponte-Rodríguez, Ernesto J.; Carlo-Colón, Héctor J.; College of Engineering; Cesaní Vázquez, Viviana I.; Rullán Toro, Agustín; Department of Industrial Engineering; Romanach, Rodolfo
This study presents a decision support tool (DST) developed in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) for managing the logistics of a Yard in the Chemical Industry with the objective to minimize operational costs. It describes the current operational challenges in a typical Chemical Industry’s Yard and the development of the DST focusing on the optimization problems related to decisions previously identified. The DST takes in consideration tankers, chemical tanks, truck scheduling, among others. The solution from the proposed DST reduced the costs associated with the Internal Truck movements by 34% and Yard operator duties reduced in 60% with the use of a Linear Assignment Problem, decision making heuristics and the Analytical Hierarchy Process as part of the methodology. The proposed DST can also be used to estimate the number of Dam parking spaces required in the facility. The simplicity of the software (i.e. only requires Excel to collect and administer information) and the quality of the results prompted interest from our collaborator’s management to implement the proposed DST.