How a New Container Terminal Is Influenced by the External Environment in Which They Wish to Operate - Assignment Example

Swarna1 Word count: 1343 ID # 5448 Order 194446 d 9th December 2007 CONTAINER TERMINAL Explain how a new Container Terminal is influenced by the external environment in which they wish to operate. A container terminal is nothing but a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for better transportation. Maritime container terminals tend to be part of a larger port, and the biggest maritime container terminals can be found situated around major harbours. The largest container terminal is situated in Singapore followed by that of Hongkong (Shipping Statistics Year Book, 2006). Similarly, Inland container terminals tend to be located near major cities. The performance of both maritime and inland container terminals is influened by external environment. Their storage capacity is also affected by different external environmental factors. The changing economic scenario of the world has tremendous influence on new container productivity. The container port and terminal business is changing rapidly. With the globalisation-driven rapid demand growth, the sector has been attracting massive new inward investment - both from operating companies and external investors. Hence, the pressures on terminal operations and development strategies are changing very rapidly. In addition, the general political environment within which terminals are operated is becoming much more environmentally sensitive. All these factors combine to place very great pressures on the sector. Accurate forecast demand growth by region and type would help the container industry. Similarly the impact of new industry structures and the effects of emerging new rules and regulations on shipping Industry is remarkable. Placing container terminal operations to meet market requirements is critical. The industry is changing rapidly, with new structures emerging in relations between shipping lines, terminal operators and cargo owners. All of this is happening as the level of legislation and rules becomes ever more complex. At the same time, private capital is rushing into the business and this has far-reaching implications for tendering and privatisation in the terminal sector. Due to the boom in world trade, port authorities are looking into ways of making existing facilities more efficient. One way to improve efficiency, increase capacity, and meet future demand is to use advanced technologies and automation in order to speed up terminal operations. (Liu et al., 2002). The inter relationship between the external environmental factors and the performance of marine container terminals was also reported by Sawyer et al (2004). The application of multi-agent based simulation for evaluating container terminal management operations has also assumed importance in the recent years. The growth of containerization, i.e., transporting goods in a container, has created problems for ports and container terminals. For instance, many container terminals are reaching their capacity limits and increasingly leading to traffic and port congestion. The need to manage complex systems such as container terminals requires new ways for finding solutions, e.g., by applying novel methods and technologies. In order to evaluate the multi-agent based systems approach, a simulation tool, called SimPort, was developed for evaluating container terminal management policies. Moreover, a multi-agent based simulation approach is used to evaluate a new type of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) using a cassette system, and compare it to a traditional AGV system. It was revealed that the performance of a container terminal can be improved by using agent-based technologies (Lawrence Henesey, 2006). In particular, multi-agent based simulation seems to offer container terminal management a suitable tool to control, coordinate, design, evaluate and improve productivity. Lastly, the impact of technological advancement is tremendous in enhancing the productivity of new container terminals. For example, the Tauranga Container Terminal increased throughput from 35,000 TEU in 1998 to 354,000 TEU in 2004, an increase of 319,000 TEU after the Navis SPARCS TOS was implemented. Navis SPARCS TOS enables the Tauranga Terminal to fully automate and optimize vessel and rail planning, yard allocation, and equipment dispatch with minimal human interaction, which means faster, more efficient load and discharge. Examples of external environments The most important external environmental factors that affect the performance of container terminals include geographical, political, socio-economical, and technological factors. However, they also comprise of ethical, sectoral, climatic, aesthetic, legal and cultural factors. Let us analyze one by one. The performance of new container terminal is majorly influenced by political factors. The impact of new government initiatives, political agenda and any new amendments that affect the shipping industry would strongly influence the operational performance of the new container terminals. For example, when the container terminals have lower capacity than the total required capacity for United States, the government has provided subsidies to investments in new container terminals that enhanced the operational efficiency of container terminals (Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, 1986). Hence the political factors like lobbying, the new legislations adopted by the Parliament of United Kingdom or any other European nation would affect the performance of new container terminals in United Kingdom. The geographic and regional factors also tend to influence the performance of container terminals. For example, container port in Scotland has increased up to three times as fast as GDP. While there are regional variations in this phenomenon in Europe, the correlation between GDP and container port throughput continues, albeit at a reducing level (The Scottish Government Publications, 2004). It is noteworthy that the projections up to 2015 indicate continuing strong growth in the container port market. Similarly, the social factors like changes in society and societal trends and variation in population (demographic aspects) severely affect the performance of new container terminals in Europe. If the social factors lead to increase in the demand of domestic and industrial goods, it will boost up the demand for both exports and imports and accordingly the shipping industry gets positive trend. The performance of new container terminals also get influenced by ethical factors like human relevance of new emerging technologies. If the society is inclining more towards ethical friendly technology, the container terminal productivity also would be enhanced. One cannot under estimate the impact of technological factors on new container terminals. This mainly comprises of developing the technological goods according to the needs of business, higher investments in technology, enhancing infrastructure sector including communications and E-commerce. Moreover, the socio-economic factors like government monetary and fiscal policies, inflation and interest rate regime are inter related and they in turn influence the productivity of new container terminals significantly. The cultural factors at international, national and regional levels influence the consumption pattern of the people which in turn affect the demand for exports and imports and hence the container terminals would be influenced tremendously. The other positive factors influencing container terminal productivity are in the form of encouraging tourism, communications and other public conveyance system. At the same time, as long as the container terminals address the problems or needs of the customers, their operational performance would be enhanced remarkably. The research towards the satisfaction of customer needs is highly called for enhancing the container terminal productivity. Climatic factors like natural calamities or disasters would negatively influence the container terminal productivity. Hence they must be located in most favourable location which is less subjected to cyclones and other natural disasters. Lastly, the productivity of new container terminals would also be affected by legal factors like new amendments in national and international legal authorities which affect the environment and employment, competition between different agencies, cartels, monopolies and oligopolies. References Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems. (1986). Improving productivity in US Mariner container terminals. Measures of improving mariner container terminal productivity. 25-37. The National Academies Press Publication. Shipping statistics Year Book. (2006). World Port Ranking. 2005. http://aapa.files.cms-plus.com/Statistics/WORLD%20PORT%20RANKINGS%202005.xls Lawrence Henesey. (2006). Multi-Agent Container Terminal Management. Karlshamn. Blekinge Institute of Technology, 8:1-289. ISBN:91-7295-099-4. Liu, C.-I.; Jula, H.; Ioannou, P.A. (2002). Design, simulation, and evaluation of automated container terminals. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. 3(1):12 – 26. Navis. (2007). Navis TOS supports a 319,000 TEU increase in throughput. http://www.navis.com/tauranga.jsp. Sawyer,J.T., Fuqua,J.B. and Kulick,B.C. (2004). Discrete-Event simulation : Assessing environmental issues of intermodal terminals. Proceedings of Environmental modelling and simulation : 432. The Scottish government publications. (2004). Container Transhipment and Demand for Container Terminal Capacity in Scotland.http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/09/19885/42551. Read More