Most researchers have demonstrated the importance and the value of maritime terminal scheduling and optimization. The following work is focusing first, on the problem of loading operations of outbound containers. Thus, the sequencing of both Quay crane and truck is studied at the same time. Moreover, the possibility of potential interferences between quay cranes and the problem of shifting which significantly influence the performance of quay cranes is considered. In the literature, there is no work that combines interferences between quay cranes and shifting problem at the same time which is the innovation point of our work.

The scheduling problem of the operations loading containers is formulated as a mixed linear program model. The objective function is to minimize the makespan of handling operations by the quay cranes. The mathematical model is based on various assumptions and it includes the potential interferences and the shifting problem.