Delft University of Technology
Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Transport Technology
B.M.A. Herfkens Automation of Rock Transport Schedule for Barges
Computer program, Report 2006.TL.7082, Transport Engineering and Logistics.
In Dubai many large dredging projects are being carried out to increase the length of the coastline. By the time the four big projects Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali, World Island Project and Palm Deira are finished, the coastline of Dubai will be expanded by over 2000%.
My internship was with the project team of Rock Transportation of Van Oord in Dubai and Ras al Khaimah. This project team made the daily planning of 17 barges with an average capacity of 9.000 tons of rock sailing up and down to 2 projects in Dubai.
Establishment of the daily sailing schedule for these barges, towed by 9 tugs from 2 different ports and to 2 projects, is very complex due to the many variables. The planning was handmade each day twice and takes a lot of time.
The assignment was to automate the making of the sailing schedule for the tugs and the rock barges. Also data had to be collected and registered to make it accessible and to prevent it from being merely dependant on the know-how and experience of one person. The excel sheet, that was used to make a schedule, was expanded with Visual Basic Application macros. The first stage of the automation was the copying of information from the planning to specific timetables for barges, tugs, ports and discharging pontoons. Subsequently some extra features were added to monitor the production progress (during that week) assigning barges within the ports to different berths and the initial operations of each barge were automatically generated.
The second stage implied the automation of the planning. This turned out to be possible by adding macro's. In addition a manual was created to make it easier for new people to make the sailing schedule with the new macros. Also a data worksheet was added to register all relevant data. This data can be changed and would automatically be used in the scheduling.
The result of the assignment is currently applied with the daily scheduling, especially the first stage. At the end of the internship all requirements of the assignment were fulfilled. Unfortunately due to the rapid changing of equipment it seems to be hard to keep the program up to date. Also some variables could not be taken into account like extra times for crew changes and bunkering.
A good recommendation is to use the expertise of a professional planning software company. These programs exist and can be a useful addition to such a large production system.
Reports on Transport Engineering and Logistics (in Dutch)
