Abstract:
Container packing is a routine task that contributes significantly to the optional cost of the shipping industry. Container packing is an NP-hard problem and difficult to solve optimally, due to stringent requirements on minimum cost and indivisibility of boxes. At present, container packing is achieved by hand in many shipping companies. However, this manual approach is usually time-consuming, produces errors, and results in a high shipping cost. In this paper, we aim to design and implement a cost-efficient and fast algorithm for container packing. Objectives of this work are to, (1) develop a cost-efficient and fast algorithm for container packing based on an appropriate heuristic, (2) implement the algorithm in software, and (3) compare the developed algorithm with the manual approach. The scope of the packing algorithm includes the following: boxes are assumed to be cubic; only heuristics that pack boxes in parallel to the containers walls will be considered; information such as boxes and containers dimensions are accurate. The results of this work show that the developed algorithm outperforms the conventional manual approach in terms of cost and processing time. In addition, the algorithm runs efficiently even for a large number of boxes typically faced in oversea shipments. In conclusion, the developed algorithm is promising and can be a viable tool for a shipping company that aims to minimize its operational cost.