Background: The Port of Durban plays a pivotal role in South Africa’s maritime trade. This article addresses a critical challenge faced by the Durban dry-bulk and break-bulk terminal, which is the excessive waiting time experienced by vessels at anchorage. Lengthy anchorage waiting time results in economic losses for shipping companies and affects the overall efficiency of the port.
Objectives: The study aimed to identify the factors that affect the anchorage of dry-bulk and break-bulk vessels while waiting for the berth (WFB) in order to recommend actions that should be taken to reduce vessel anchorage waiting time while WFB at the Port of Durban’s bulk terminal.
Method: Qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, which lends itself particularly well to thematic analysis.
Results: The research findings reveal that multiple factors contribute to the extended waiting times experienced by dry-bulk and break-bulk vessels at the Port of Durban. These factors include inefficient cargo handling processes, inadequate infrastructure, congestion, adverse weather conditions, and port capacity constraints. In addition, vessels arriving at the same time while the berth is still occupied further intensify delays, resulting in vessels WFB at anchorage.
Conclusion: The study identified and prioritised these factors, which enabled the development of targeted solutions to mitigate the waiting time issue. The proposed solutions encompass both short-term and long-term measures.
Contribution: This research emphasises the importance of supply chain collaboration among key port stakeholders.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
Aries Susanty, Nia B. Puspitasari, Darminto Pujotomo
et al.
Background: Indonesia’s logistics industry boosts economic growth but harms the environment via plastic waste and carbon emissions – single-use plastics and fossil fuel transport cause persistent pollution. Green procurement (GP) is essential to reduce these impacts by prioritising sustainable suppliers and products despite cost and regulatory challenges.
Objectives: The objective of this study is to explore the interconnections and significance of barriers affecting the implementation of GP in Indonesia’s logistics sector.
Method: The study employs content validity analysis, decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approaches for data processing. These methods are used to identify, analyse and structure the relationships and hierarchical positioning of the barriers.
Results: The study identifies 14 key barriers to the successful implementation of GP in Indonesia’s logistics industry. Key barriers include the lack of eco-friendly materials, insufficient supplier readiness, the absence of regulatory frameworks and inadequate government incentives. These foundational barriers trigger cascading effects that impact both operational and strategic procurement levels.
Conclusion: The findings suggest overcoming barriers through targeted supplier training, increasing eco-friendly materials, adopting effective GP regulations and enhancing government incentives, which will reduce environmental impact, promote sustainable logistics practices and support broader environmental sustainability goals.
Contribution: This study helps Indonesia’s logistics by providing practical solutions that enable the industry to adopt sustainable practices, reduce environmental impacts and support national sustainability goals.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
Micah Burgstahler, Leila L. Goedhals-Gerber, Ben Human
Background: The Port of Durban in South Africa has faced significant road congestion for many years. To address this, the fresh-produce industry proposed a cross-harbour container-handling barge system. The citrus industry requested this study to evaluate the potential carbon footprint impact of such a system on citrus exports transported in reefer containers around the port.
Objectives: This study aimed to assess whether a barge system could reduce the carbon footprint of citrus exports and alleviate road congestion to improve the export supply chain’s efficiency.
Method: Using an exploratory case study with primary and secondary data, the research applied a deductive approach to theory development. Carbon emissions were calculated for three scenarios: the current system, the proposed barge system and a combined system.
Results: The carbon emissions for the three scenarios are as follows: current system: 25.20 kg CO2e per reefer; proposed system: 17.43 kg CO2e per reefer; and combined system: 20.61 kg CO2e per reefer. However, the proposed system does not have sufficient capacity to handle all the reefer containers in a given citrus season.
Conclusion: The combined system is the logical choice. The combined system shows a CO2e emissions saving of approximately 18% per reefer compared to the current system.
Contribution: This study explores the carbon reduction and congestion alleviation benefits of a cross-harbour barge system at the Port of Durban. Unlike existing literature on inland waterway barge systems, it provides a port-specific analysis and is among the first to quantify CO2e emissions for citrus exports using a barge system.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
Peer produced goods such as online knowledge bases and free/libre open source software rely on contributors who often choose their tasks regardless of consumer needs. These goods are susceptible to underproduction: when popular goods are relatively low quality. Although underproduction is a common feature of peer production, very little is known about how to counteract it. We use a detailed longitudinal dataset from English Wikipedia to show that more experienced contributors -- including those who contribute without an account -- tend to contribute to underproduced goods. A within-person analysis shows that contributors' efforts shift toward underproduced goods over time. These findings illustrate the value of retaining contributors in peer production, including those contributing without accounts, as a means to counter underproduction.
This exploratory study delves into the factors influencing digital technology adoption and the dynamics of its institutionalization within the Thai maritime industry, a key sector underpinning Thailand's economic expansion. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with executive leaders from seven Thai shipowners, utilizing a snowball sampling method. The study reveals that digital technology adoption is driven by a complex interplay of factors including reliable IT infrastructure, perceived technological benefits, organizational culture, top management support, IT skills and support, legal, regulatory, and policy requirements, social pressure influence, and varying degrees of government support. Additionally, the institutionalization of such technologies within the maritime sector is heavily reliant on well-defined organizational rules and the establishment of trust in technological advancements. These findings not only enrich the theoretical landscape regarding digital adoption but also offer practical insights for industry stakeholders, paving the way for more nuanced interventions and policy formulations aimed at enhancing digital integration in this traditionally conservative sector.
Abstract Sea-rail intermodal transportation around the globe faces complex challenges that affect the satisfaction of shippers' needs. An efficient cargo flow between the port and its hinterland depends particularly on efficient connectivity between the seaport and rail. Sea-rail intermodal can be a cost-efficient and green alternative to unimodal road transportation. Inefficient sea-rail connectivity in the seaport slows cargo flow and affects port capacity. Various factors could affect the system's efficiency and create bottlenecks in the system. A case study adopts a discrete event-based simulation approach to assess bottlenecks in the sea-rail connection that affect cargo flow and generate congestion. The data were collected from the Port of Trois-Rivières, the focus of our investigation. Our objective is to identify bottlenecks in the sea-rail intermodal system in the port, identify strategies to mitigate bottlenecks and accelerate cargo flow. To this end, we examined various scenarios, including an increase in the share of trains for cargo transportation and an increase in the number of daily train convoys. The findings underscore that elevating the train share to 40% and introducing two daily train services yield significant enhancements in key performance indicators. Noteworthy advantages encompass a reduction in the average time ships spend in the port, a decrease in the average waiting time for trains to depart from the port, an overall improvement in cargo handling efficiency within the port, and a notable alleviation of bottlenecks within the system.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
El Reino Unido se ha consolidado como un referente en el Arbitraje Marítimo, convirtiéndose en foro principal de procedimientos a nivel mundial, y planea mantenerse en ese sitial de honor a través de la revisión de su legislación en esta materia. Por ello, en 2024 se tiene previsto que se publique una Reforma a la Ley de Arbitraje de 1996 que contribuya al fortalecimiento de esta institución dentro del sistema británico.
Son variados los tópicos que incluye esta enmienda, sin embargo, uno de los que más puede impactar en los casos con componentes marítimos es justamente el tema jurisdiccional, asunto de obligatoria revisión siempre que se plantea un litigio marítimo con componentes de extranjería relevantes.
De ahí, que se haga obligatorio escudriñar los cambios que se proponen en este ámbito, que básicamente se componen de una serie de condiciones, dirigidas a los órganos judiciales, para poder admitir impugnaciones jurisdiccionales sobre procesos o decisiones arbitrales.
Al condicionarse o limitarse la esfera de influencia que tienen los jueces sobre los procedimientos arbitrales, se robustece el arbitraje como medio autónomo de resolución de controversias, a la par que se incentiva a los litigantes a acudir al mismo, puesto que se garantiza el respeto al procedimiento, la celeridad y la economía procesal, puntos claves en la estrategia de Reino Unido en su deseo de conservar su liderato como sede del arbitraje internacional.
Background: The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry is a key sector in the South African economy. In this context, designing disruption-management strategies for a robust supply chain has become a critical worldwide issue that is still under-explored in the FMCG industry.
Objectives: The study investigated the supply-chain disruptions in the South African FMCG industry
Setting: The study was conducted mainly among the supermarket chains, hypermarkets or super stores, department stores, pharmacy chains, general dealers and speciality stores across South Africa.
Method: This was an exploratory qualitative study that employed interviews as the data-collection method. Twenty supply chain professionals were purposely selected on the basis of their experience and expertise in supply chain management within the FMCG industry. Thematic analysis was used as a method for data analysis.
Results: Six main themes emerged from the primary data and these included competitive market environment, geopolitics, automated distribution centres, natural disasters, rise of nationalistic sentiments and acute skills shortages.
Conclusion: The findings pointed to many uncertainties in the South African FMCG and retail industry and the study proposed possible resilient strategies to counter these disruptions.
Contribution: The first of the study’s suggested practical contributions is a framework for supply chain disruptions in the FMCG industry.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
This paper develops a theory of competitive equilibrium with indivisible goods based entirely on economic conditions on demand. The key idea is to analyze complementarity and substitutability between bundles of goods, rather than merely between goods themselves. This approach allows us to formulate sufficient, and essentially necessary, conditions for equilibrium existence, which unify settings with complements and settings with substitutes. Our analysis has implications for auction design.
We study a matching problem between agents and public goods, in settings without monetary transfers. Since goods are public, they have no capacity constraints. There is no exogenously defined budget of goods to be provided. Rather, each provided good must justify its cost by being utilized by sufficiently many agents, leading to strong complementarities in the "preferences" of goods. Furthermore, goods that are in high demand given other already-provided goods must also be provided. The question of the existence of a stable solution (a menu of public goods to be provided) exhibits a rich combinatorial structure. We uncover sufficient conditions and necessary conditions for guaranteeing the existence of a stable solution, and derive both positive and negative results for strategyproof stable matching.
Background: Given the effervescent nature of external dynamic exasperations (EDEs) and uncertainties, this article enterprise application architecture (EAA) evaluates the probable effect on actual adoption of enterprise application architecture for supply chain management (SCM). Actual adoption (AA) of EAA is a major need for small and medium, hence the legal frameworks are there to ensure compliance on complex legal and regulatory constraints, a lack of external financing, low technological capacity, relative advantage, hardware systems and software systems compatibility.
Objective: The central objective of this article is to establish whether EDEs affect the AA of EAA for SCM in SMEs, as well as supply chain success factors with five models used to identify the statistics gaps, which could be constructive for descriptive and correlational research studies.
Method: A quantitative approach under correlational research is considered to investigate the relationships between variables without interventions and manipulations from the researcher.
Results: To increase the reliability of measures, each variable was tested for data reliability and validity through Cronbach’s alpha and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, chronologically. The results indicate that EDEs have a direct impact on the AA of EAA as encrypted in Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Pearson’s coefficient and linear regression.
Conclusion: The study revealed that EDEs have positive impact on the AA of EAA.
Contribution: Consequently, this study makes a prominent contribution to research on the benefits of AA of EAA by signifying the effectuation theory by maintaining control on possibilities with foreseeable outcomes; then EDEs will be history.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications
O objetivo deste artigo é descrever sobre a valoração aduaneira e os preços de transferência, visando analisar a existência de harmonização entre regras de cada instituto para definir o valor de transação de mercadorias. A elaboração do estudo segue orientações de normas, leis e bibliografias. E, justifica-se ante a dificuldade de empresas vinculadas operacionalizar os paralelismos entre as regras do valor aduaneiro e o preço de transferência, e também, de definir o valor das transações. A metodologia utilizada foi o método indutivo, que partiu da análise de pesquisas bibliográficas, esta por sua vez, foi o ponto de partida para este estudo. Por fim, concluiu-se que harmonizar as regras dos preços de transferência para definir um valor aduaneiro parece razoável quando se tratar de empresas vinculadas, desde que não utilize uma norma em detrimento da outra.
Abstract Society, companies and institutions are involved in a digital transformation that can be pervaded in various industries or sectors, and this also applies to communication, sales and distribution channels. The possibilities of e-commerce have also increased and world trade has been further developed. In 2020, more than two billion people bought goods or services over the Internet. Customer satisfaction depends on the solution of the last mile process, the method of picking up shipments as well as the time and place of picking up the shipment. The most common forms of off-premises delivery are automated parcel locker or machine (APM) and pick-up and drop-off delivery (PUDO). The aim of the paper is to analyse the level of the PUDO and APM network in European countries and in the V4 countries with regard to the size of the country and the population. For this purpose, it was necessary to focus on determining the population per 1 PUDO and the number of inhabitants per 1 APM in individual European countries and subsequently in the V4 countries. The obtained data were processed and recalculated in Excel. The results showed that within European countries the best values were achieved by Finland with 526 inhabitants per 1 PUDO and Spain with 188 inhabitants per 1 APM. Regarding the V4 countries, the Czech Republic achieved the best value in the case of inhabitants on PUDO with 729 inhabitants per 1 PUDO and in the case of APM Poland with 3,184 inhabitants per 1 APM.
Operating in today’s turbulent and competitive world marketplaces, manufacturers must find the best production scheme and delivery policy to meet timely client’s multiproduct requirements and minimize the total manufacturing-shipment expenses. This study proposes a two-stage delayed differentiation model for a multiproduct manufacturer-retailer coordinated supply chain featuring the adjustable-rate for making common parts and a multi-shipment policy for transporting finished goods. The aim is to help present-day manufacturers achieve their operational goals mentioned above. The mathematical techniques help us build a specific model to explicitly represent the problem and derive its overall operating expense. Then, the convexity of the total expense is verified by Hessian matrix equations. The differential calculus helps derive the cost-minimized fabrication-shipment decision. This study offers an example to demonstrate the applicability and capabilities of our proposed model numerically. The following crucial information has been made available to the managers to facilitate their operating decision makings: (1) the problem’s best fabrication-shipment policy; (2) the collective influence of various common part’s completion rates and values on the problem’s total expenses and optimal fabrication-shipment policy; (3) the impact of various adjustable-rates in stage one on utilization and stage one’s uptime; (4) the details of cost contributors to the problem; and (5) the collective impacts of critical features on the problem’s performance.
Introduction. The scheduling a transportation route of overweight and oversize goods by road is necessary to perform taken into account road traffic safety and security of artificial engineering structures (bridges, railway crossing and others). The monitoring and control of these procedures are performed by a licensing system in Russia. During the delivery a driver must carry out the transportation of such cargo within the approved route that is specified in a particular paper (authorization) located in the vehicle. Issues appear mostly during first shipment organization and when the route is outside the permanent vehicles location, when road network and bypass schemes are not familiar for the driver and the current GPS-systems bases do not include formal designations of roads according to state register. The authors suppose digital technologies implementation has to facilitate easier abnormal load shipments violations-free sufficiently.The Materials and methods. A transportation organisation model of abnormal loads by BPMN notation has been developed. The key control points have been determined by the authors on the base of their own experience.The results. An information model of forming and transmitting to the carrier authorization to transport abnormal load within the approved route has been developed. In the authorization the link to the cartographic resource is inserted in one of the QR-code field. Such approach makes possible to identify approved route clearly and unambiguously.Uniqueness and practical meaning. The information model uniqueness consists of the transmission way of approves route to the customer – not the sequence of transit localities, but the cartographic resource. The practical implementation of such decision is addressed to help a carrier (a driver) to perform the abnormal load transportation strictly within the approved route.
Abstract The development of autonomous vessel has achieved tremendous interest across the world for the safe navigation and economic benefits. Numerous alternatives are constructed in the autonomous vessel development projects, the alternatives of MUNIN and NYK project are combined for this study; these are - Manned autonomous vessel, Remotely controlled vessel, Autonomous and Partially remote-controlled vessel, and Full autonomous vessel. As the statistics of UNCTAD shows that South-East Asia is a highly dense region and has the busiest international maritime connectivity, this research tried to select the appropriate autonomous vessels from the four alternatives to ensure safe navigation in this traffic congested maritime route. For this study, 311 accident reports are investigated to find out the most frequent casualty and its cause. The data are collected from the global integrated shipping information system of the international maritime organization's website. The decision tree of R-studio demonstrates that the most frequent accidents are- Collision, Grounding, Fire, and listing. Afterwards a survey was made on 65 experienced seafarers to determine which autonomous vessel criteria would be compatible to avoid the casualty. This research adopts AHP (analytical hierarchy process) to conduct the analysis. AHP is a multi-criteria decision analysis method for solving any decision problem. The research shows that ‘Manned autonomous vessel’ and ‘Autonomous and Partially remote-controlled vessel’ are the appropriate alternatives for safe navigation in the South-East Asian region. This study will help the researcher who is working in autonomous vessel development, mainly working for Asian water.
Shipment of goods. Delivery of goods, Transportation and communications