A Dynamic Approach to Multi-transfer Container Management

This paper introduces a dynamic approach to manage the processing of client requests in a multi-transfer container transportation (MTCT) system. At the operational level, this type of system is faced with a continuously changing environment. In this context, the need for dynamic creation and adaptation of solutions is of utmost importance. The adopted approach is based on a two-layer framework that exploits workflow technology. The latter proposes a formalism to describe sequences of activities to be enacted when processing requests, hence reducing the need for manual, time-consuming management and organi-zation. The proposed two-layer framework has a workflow layer that encapsulates the set of concurrently running workflows associated to client requests. A coordination layer is mainly responsible for the instan-tiation of new workflows to be inserted in the workflow layer and for modifications of running ones. These modifications are motivated by resource sharing issues or triggered by unanticipated/unexpected events. According to this two-layer framework, an implementation of a prototype for a MTCT system is finally presented.