The idea for a second volume of the Handbook of Container Shipping Management was already born when the first volume had not even been published. In the meantime, the success of the latter has reassured us that the concept of bringing together authors from academia and the industry meets the demand and is worth pursuing further. While the first volume provides a broad picture of the container market, the present second volume looks more closely into the operational level.
Its twelve chapters are clustered into three broad thematic fields:
- General Management Issues
- Market Analysis
- Operational Issues
This volume is addressed first and foremost to practitioners at the management level, but it is equally of interest to academics that have a particular interest in any of the topics treated here. Information about the authors including the possibility to contact them directly, comprehensive references and endnotes to each chapter, a guide to further reading and a glossary complete this book and make it a valuable resource for detailed research as well as for day-to-day use.
The Editors:
Christel Heideloff, Senior Economist (ISL, Bremen - until December 2007)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Pawlik (Kiel University of Applied Sciences)
Its twelve chapters are clustered into three broad thematic fields:
- General Management Issues
- Market Analysis
- Operational Issues
This volume is addressed first and foremost to practitioners at the management level, but it is equally of interest to academics that have a particular interest in any of the topics treated here. Information about the authors including the possibility to contact them directly, comprehensive references and endnotes to each chapter, a guide to further reading and a glossary complete this book and make it a valuable resource for detailed research as well as for day-to-day use.
The Editors:
Christel Heideloff, Senior Economist (ISL, Bremen - until December 2007)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Pawlik (Kiel University of Applied Sciences)
Table of Contents
Global Strategic Management in Liner Container ShippingDr. Alfred Baird is Head of the Maritime Research Group at Napier University's Transport Research Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland.
This articel offers an analytical framework for the principal strategic management options and choices in the global container shipping industry, implying the superiority of multi-strategic management choices over specific management approaches. It argues that several alternative strategies supplement each other and might help to achieve a more flexible way of container transportation service. This framework is applied to strategic assets such as different ship types, terminals and intermodal transport on the one hand and to strategic operations such as organisational structure, information systems and trade agreements on the other hand.
Shipping Networks Evolution in International Containerised Trade
Gordon Wilmsmeier is research fellow at the Transport Research Institute (TRi) at Napier University.
Ricardo J. Sanchez is Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) and Assistant Professor of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.
The structures of liner service networks are in constant evolution. Strategies of shipping lines have been adapting to the changes in trade flows and in adjustment to the industry's internal development.
Shipping industry's market structure, liner service supply and trade developments are highly interconnected. The strategies in place by shipping lines influence the integration of a region in the global liner shipping network. The integration and connectivity of a region can be decisive for a country's competitiveness in international trade. This is especially true for smaller markets. This chapter reviews the evolution of liner shipping supply on the West Coast of South America to exemplify the existing challenges and dependencies of a region on the strategy of shipping lines and feedback effects from development in other regions. Liner shipping network structure is not just a matter of demand it strongly underlies economic calculations and strategic trade offs of the shipping industry.
The Value of Time in Container Shipping
Dr. Lars Stemmler is Senior Analyst in transport finance with a leading commercial bank based in Hamburg, former professor for maritime logistics at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
The article evaluates the role of inventory costs in international container transport and how they affect the overall cost of transport. It assesses the importance of the value of time in transport, the impact of changing transit times on the inventory, the resulting total transport costs, and the strategies to address inventory costs in international supply chains. With the help of a simple empirical model, a typical transport chain is examined, considering transport costs and inventory costs, forming the quantitative basis for a discussion of strategies to address inventory costs in supply chains.
The 'Vessel of Quality' as a Marketing Tool
Dr. Thomas Pawlik is Director of the Institute of Supply Chain and Operations Management and Professor at Kiel University of Applied Sciences where he lectures in Maritime Logistics.
Tanja Weibrecht has spent over 16 years in various positions in the logistic industry. Thereof, she worked 15 years for an international shipping line and since 1.5 years she has joined the market leader in seaport-hinterland traffic from/to German seaports.
Developing the concept of the 'House of Quality' from the technique of Quality Function Deployment, the article will discuss the types of service shippers expect their carriers to provide. The original concept thus is turned into a 'Vessel of Quality', applied to a fictitious example. The article will conclude that the concept does not only allow for the accommodation of shippers' needs with carriers' service elements, but may also tackle service quality issues and narrow the service gap.
Risk Management
Katrin Ewert (MBL) works at the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation in Hamburg, Germany.
The article explores the various areas of risk management in the container shipping business, covering mercantile risks, technical risks, operational risks, market risks and business risks. It also gives information on the main insurance products available to and used by the shipping industry. Stressing that leaving risks unmanged will have significant negative impacts on the assets of shipping companies, the article urges companies to integrate risk management into the decision-making process and thus improve the operational performance.
Cost Management
Karsten Kunibert Krüger-Kopiske works for DAL Deutsche Afrika-Linien, acting in different capacities on the management level, including a secondment to South Africa.
The article explores the market structure in shipping accounts with regard to the importance of ship owners to closely control and administer their costs. Covering cargo-related costs, voyage-related costs, container system costs and ship system costs, ship administration costs and ship operation costs, the different categories and procedures of effective cost-management are outlined and explained.
Ecological Challenges in Container Shipping
Capt. Christian Bahlke manages different research projects for GAUSS (Institute for Environmental Protection and Safety in Shipping) in the field of Quality Shipping, e.g. the development of criteria for the 'Blue Angel Award for Environment Conscious Ship-Operation' or the 'Development of a Ballast Water Treatment Plant'.
The article explores the different fields of environmental impacts and counter-actions in container shipping. Focussing on gaseous emissions and the reduction of pollutants, with a special regard to the feasability of cold ironing, the article concludes that while gaseous emissions often are substantial and pose dangers to human health and to the environment, there are also feasable and cost-effective means of reducing them
Relevance of Efficient Hinterland Access for the Inter-Port Competitiveness of European Container Ports
Dr. Jan Ninnemann is employed with UNICONSULT as project manager and transport economist. He has profound knowledge in regional and market analysis and the conception of development plans, especially in the railway, railway infrastructure and maritime sector.
The article discusses the defining factors of efficient hinterland access for container ports, assessing them in terms of their competitiveness and general trends in hinterland transport. Illustrating how hinterland transport conditions affect the performance of a seaport by using Hamburg as a case study, it is concluded that the necessary developments and upgradings of the hinterland infrastructure of European container ports will lead to a prosperous development in the long run.
From Port Statistics to Transport Chains – Decomposing the Container Hinterland Traffic of European North Range Ports
Sönke Maatsch is economist at the Maritime Transport and Economics department of the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL).
The rising container traffic volumes increasingly challenge the existing hinterland infrastructures of ports around the world. In order to target investments to specific infrastructure projects, reliable information on container flows is invaluable. The present article gives an overview of the available data sources for hinterland traffic, and how such data can be used for market analysis, infrastructure planning and environmental impact studies. For the purpose of this article, the European North Range ports serve as example.
Simulation Models for the Planning and Analysing of Container Terminals
Dr.-Ing. Holger Schütt works as project manager in the department 'Planning- and Simulation Systems' at the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics in Bremerhaven.
During the last 50 years, simulation technology found its way from technical applications to the logistics. Due to the demand of high productivity and automation, special simulation tools have been developed for container terminals. Exemplary, the Container Terminal Altenwerder (Hamburg/Germany) may be named as user of this technology. The whole planning, developing and installation process has been accompanied by simulation
RFID and SCEM support Container Transport
Dr. Frank Arendt is director of the department 'Information Logistics'at the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) and responsible for the ISL simulation group located in Bremerhaven.
Dr. Nils Meyer-Larsen is project manager in the ISL for more then six years. He has managed several projects in the maritime and logistic sector for the European Commission, the German Ministry of Transport, and private companies.
Rainer Müller is employed as a software developer at the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) and a lecturer for software development at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremerhaven.
Innovative technologies, like Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM), can support operators to exploit present and upcoming challenges like increasing cargo volumes and rising security demands. The suggested solutions can, on the one hand, optimise logistics processes e.g. by automatic identification of containers and by achieving a better visibility of the transport chain and, on the other hand, can raise the security level of the transport process.
Management Systems: Quality, Environment, Safety, and Security
Bernhard Ständer is Managing Director of Germanischer Lloyd Certification GmbH and Global Business Manager of Systems Certification.
This article gives a tabular overview on the current and future standards concerning quality, environmental, safety and security aspects within the global container logistic chain.
