Oil products storage, loading & distribution system forms the most essential part of oil products supply chain. The management of this system plays a critical role in the performance of the oil products supply chain. Due to widespread operations in oil depots, implementing scientific methods and optimization, instead of traditional ones, seems necessary in order to optimize the use of fuel storage depots’ resources and decrease system costs. In this study, a queue model of depot with successive services has been adopted to achieve quantitative results for the analysis of the depot performance. The designed simulation model has been implemented by using information data from the Northwest of Tehran oil depot. Then by using the SA metaheuristic method, it has been attempted to obtain the optimum combination of loading arms in the depot for achieving minimum waiting time for tanker trucks in the queue, before entering the depot. The obtained results have been compared with optimum results from the commercial OptQuest optimization simulation software, and are briefly presented.
Golchinpour M. Optimum Management of Oil Products Loading Operations by Means of Simulation Optimization. IJE 2010; 13 (1) :39-54 URL: http://necjournals.ir/article-1-43-en.html