Simulation of Empty Container Logistic Management at Depot

This study focuses on the empty container management problem in a deficit regional area. Deficit area is the area having more export activities than the import activities, which always have a shortage of empty container. This environment has challenged the trading companies in the decision making in distributing the empty containers. A simulation model that fit to the environment is developed. Besides, a simple heuristic algorithm with some hard and soft constraints consideration are proposed to plan the logistic of empty container supply. Then, the feasible route with the minimum cost will be determined by applying the proposed heuristic algorithm. The heuristic algorithm can be divided into three main phases which are data sorting, data assigning and time window updating