Simulation at a maritime container terminal: Models and computational frameworks

NEC-Italy high-performance computing division recognises that computer simulation aided organisation and management is the true challenge for a new generation of advanced decision tools for supporting operations in modern logistic platforms. Collecting academic expertises, research skills, computing machinery and dynamic realities with a significant growth into the field of container terminal logistics is a new R&D project at the CESIC-NEC center at the University of Calabria. The starting idea of this project is that discrete-event simulation is the best modelling approach to manage the complexity of logistic processes at container terminals. For these time-based systems, operating in a stochastic environment, becomes crucial to highlight both congestion and starvation phenomena embedded into logistic processes, in order to achieve reasonable targets of a good management of resources and, therefore, stay on the market. Here we present some queuing network based representations that are at the basis of an integrated simulation model under development. Since large and complex models are affected by a high burden on execution, we also remark the benefits of parallel and/or distributed computational frameworks. Numerical results on parallel analysis of simulation output data are given.