Hmm. Let's say you're looking at that 5000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) ship with (the most common, IIUC) 40' containers. The state space for optimization has something like 2500! or 10^7400 states. Given 24 hours to optimize it at 1ns per state, you could look at 10^14 states or 10^-7384% of the state space.
There are also a lot more constraints than weight and balance and they're constantly changing; some may rule out big chunks of the state space which is very good, but it's still a Hard Problem.
But it's not like there aren't people already doing it.
There are also a lot more constraints than weight and balance and they're constantly changing; some may rule out big chunks of the state space which is very good, but it's still a Hard Problem.
But it's not like there aren't people already doing it.
https://www.herbert-abs.com/cargomax-for-container-ships
https://www.lineroptimizer.com/