Spatial Scheduling in Shipbuilding Industry

In any large heavy industry like that of ship building, there exist a lot of complications for the arrangement of building blocks optimally for the minimal space consumption. The major problem arises at yard because of laxity in space for arranging the building blocks of ship under construction. A standardized erection sequence diagram is generally available to provide the prioritised erection sequence. This erection sequence diagram serves as the frame work. In order to make a timely erection of the blocks a post plan has to be developed so that the blocks lie in the nearest possible vicinity of the material handling devices while keeping the priority of erection. Therefore, the blocks are arranged in the pre-erection area. This kind of readiness of blocks leads to a very complex problem of space. This arises due to the least available space leading to an urgent need of an availability of intelligent spatial schedule without compromising the rate of production. There exists two critical problems ahead namely, the spatial occupation layout of pre-erection area and the emptying pattern in the spatial vicinity. The block shape is assumed be rectangular. The related input data's are the dates of erection (earliest as well as the latest), geometrical parameters of block available on pre-erection area, slack time and the like.