eng Science and Education Publishing International Journal of Econometrics and Financial Management 2014-03-03 2 1 34 47 10.12691/ijefm-2-1-5 IJEFM2014215 article Khaled MILI 1 Tarek SADRAOUI tarek.sadraoui@gmail.com 2 Quantitative Method, Higher Institute of business Administration, Gafsa, Tunisia Economic Sciences, Higher Institute of business Administration, Gafsa, Tunisia In this paper we discusses how to route straddle carriers during the loading operation of export containers in port container terminals. This problem is solved in the context of optimizing loading operations. The container allocation problem is formulated as a transportation problem. In the carrier routing problem, the sequence of yard-bays that a carrier visits is determined. A beam search algorithm is developed for the carrier routing problem. A numerical experimentation is carried out in order to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. The contribution of the work lies in the formulation and subsequent development of a Six Sigma Approach solution for the problem. An experimental design is carried out in order to illustrate the resolution process. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ijefm/2/1/5/ijefm-2-1-5.pdf container terminal optimization routing Straddle Carrier assignment strategy Six Sigma Approach