The Reloading of a Ship in a Maritime Container Terminal as a Queuing Problem of Interacting Processes

In this work, we propose a multi-server queuing system for modeling the processes that occur in a maritime container terminal. In our study, the main operations that take place at the quay and in the yard are first disaggregated into several elementary activities. Then we propose the step-by-step calculation of the times of each operation that influences both the unloading and the loading of a container. Next, we analyze the vessel cycle time while separately investigating the STS (ship to shore) crane cycle time, the RTG (rubber tyred gantry) cycle time, as well as the IMV (internal movement vehicle) transfer time. Finally, we apply two process-driven simulation experiments to the system analysis. The paper demonstrates the proposed model's effectiveness with data from the BCT Gdynia container terminal. We show that, among others, even with properly planned work of STS cranes and RTGs, there is still a high probability that the quay will become a bottleneck of the described processes. (original abstract

Call Center Experience Optimization: A Case for a Virtual Predictive Queue

The evolution of the call center into contact centers and the growth of their use in providing customer-facing service by many companies has brought considerable capabilities in maintaining customer relationships but it also has brought challenges in providing quality service when call volumes are high. Limited in their ability to provide service at all times to all customers, companies are forced to balance the costs associated with hiring more customer service representatives and the quality of service provided by a fewer number. A primary challenge when there are not enough customer service representatives to engage the volume of callers in a timely manner is the significant wait times that can be experienced by many customers. Normally, callers are handled in accordance with a first-come, first-served policy with exceptions being skill-based routing to those customer service representatives with specialized skills. A proposed call center infrastructure framework called a Virtual Predictive Queue (VPQ) can allow some customers to benefit from a shorter call queue wait time. This proposed system can be implemented within a call center’s Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) device associated with computer telephony integration (CTI) and theoretically will not violate a first-come, first served policy