An ERP approach for container terminal operating systems

In ocean transportation, contractual and operational relationships may be asynchronous. A case in point is the relationship between a customer requiring inbound container storage and a container terminal operator. The customer may store inbound containers in a container terminal and will pay the ocean carrier a specific storage fee, without establishing any contractual relationship with the terminal operator. After collecting the storage fee, the ocean carrier will then pay the container terminal operator for the storage of the inbound container. In this article, we study two-level inbound container storage pricing problems involving a container terminal operator and an ocean carrier in two different inbound container storage contract systems: the free-time contract system and the free-space contract system. In each contract system, we propose a two-stage pricing game model. We derive the optimal decisions for the container terminal operator and the ocean carrier. Analysis about the coordination of the two kinds of contract system is also provided. Numerical studies are conducted to compare the outcomes of the two systems for the ocean carrier and the container terminal. The results of computational experiments reveal that the free-space contract system is a preferable strategy for busy container terminals in terms of traffic control.

Each container terminal has attempted to improve its performance through effective strategic and tactical management. Therefore, performance measurement is needed due to the long waiting time of the service process within container terminal operations. We have utilized the system dynamics methodology to assess container terminal performance. Container port enterprises have been influenced by governance, environmental and social components, therefore, the management of those components has significant impacts on the service port's performance. Therefore, the objective of the research is to model the dynamic performance of the container terminal with consideration of environmental, social, and governance components. Furthermore, this dynamic model has presented practical value for increasing the performance of the container terminal operation under capacity constraints. The case study focused on the Indonesia Port Corporation of Jakarta, Indonesia. As a result, the research has identified the influence of container terminal decision variables, such as emissions, employee satisfaction, and good corporate governance, on container terminals, implying their significance in reducing berthing time as the main indicator of container terminal performance. The novelty of this research is to provide a system dynamic model which combines tactical and strategic levels for container terminal operation.

The increasing pressure to reduce carbon footprint in the logistics sector has driven significant interest in sustainable practices within container terminal operations. This paper focuses on modelling and optimizing the carbon footprint of a container terminal operator by analyzing key operational processes. Existing literature extensively covers carbon footprint reduction strategies in logistics; however, specific optimization models tailored to container terminal operations remain limited. This study employs a quantitative approach and scenario-based simulations to assess the impact of different operational strategies on carbon emissions. Key research questions refer to the primary sources of carbon emissions in container terminal operations and how can operational adjustments and technological interventions optimize carbon footprint reduction. Findings suggest that electrification of handling equipment, process automation, and energy-efficient scheduling significantly reduce emissions. The study provides a structured framework for terminal operators to assess and enhance sustainability efforts, contributing to the broader discourse on green port operations.

Because container vessels spend a large portion of transportation time in ports, it is essential to improve the productivity of various handling activities in port container terminals. Also, because port construction requires a large amount of investment, it is important to efficiently utilize the internal resources of container terminals. This chapter introduces various operations in container terminals and decision-making problems that require support by scientific methods. Models and methods in previous researches are reviewed and classified according to their characteristics.

International major container terminals are trying to expand automation facilities in order to dominate the competition and grow as central harbors. Recently, system design and development were put underway to fully integrate automation systems in container terminals. This is because it can focus on improving the efficiency of the yard operations in container terminals and facilitates integration with other container terminal operation processes. Automation in the container terminal business today is essential to better serve customers and improve profitability. Real-time position and status of container handling equipment (CHE) have been required for more efficient terminal operations and consequently higher productivity. This study examined the real-time location and status of the container terminal automation equipment using DGPS in container terminals, and reviewed the components and functions of the container terminal automation yard equipment systems that developed, applied, and operated the automation systems. In addition, this study compared the existing yard system and the automation yard system and presented application methods. Also, the results revealed that the productivity of the container terminal and the efficiency of the transportation equipment can be further increased when the optimal yard automation transportation equipment system is used to efficiently operate the transportation equipment, which is the core equipment of the container terminal.

This book provides an overview of the operation of container terminals and the associated risks with such operations. These risks are often ignored or not properly investigated by both scholars and practitioners. Operational Risk Management in Container Terminals explores and discusses the decision rationales and the consequences for these operational risks handling process, with in-depth investigation on the container terminals in the Asia-Pacific region. The topics covered include the history and development of the container terminals, the operation of the terminals and risk incurred, the risk-management theories and concepts, rationales and consequences of the risk decisions in the container terminal operations, common practices and recommendations on terminal operational risk handling.

Using CiteSpace software and bibliometric method, 652 articles related to container terminal transportation operations in WOS core collection database were visualized and analyzed. Based on the network knowledge graph of document distribution of time and space, core author, research institution and key words, this paper analyzes the overall distribution, research hotspot, evolution context and frontier trend of container terminal transport operations research, in order to enrich the perspective of container terminal transport operations review study, and provide reference for promoting the construction of container terminals in our country.

Nowadays, approximately 90 per cent of the world's cargoes are moved by vessels, and the majority of general cargoes are transported in containers. Accordingly, a container terminal becomes one of the important nodes in the global supply chain network and it is important to make container terminals operate efficiently. Meanwhile, after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the US Government has proposed and implemented several approaches to improve security systems, including container security inspection operations. These operations may make an inspection center a bottleneck in container terminal operations. In this article, we analyze the container terminal berth allocation and inspection operation systems to find out a proper service rate so that potential bottlenecks can be avoided. We derive lower bounds of the service rate of the inspection center for the deterministic processing time case and perform simulation experiments to validate the lower bounds under stochastic processing time settings.

Assessing the impact of the Boankra inland container terminal on the operational performance of the seaports of Ghana

PurposeBuilding on the resource-based view (RBV) perspective of common resources, the objective of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of container terminals' common resources (i.e. government support and terminal resources) on resource bundling strategies and subsequent effect on service performance.Design/methodology/approachUsing cross-sectional survey data collected from a sample of 216 respondents of Indonesia's container terminals, this study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between common resources, resource bundling strategies and service performance.FindingsGovernment support and terminal resources (personnel and physical), both as sources of common resources when bundled effectively, are found to have positive and significant effect on terminal service performance. The resource bundling strategies fully mediate the relationship between container terminals' common resources and service performance.Practical implicationsThe study introduces the notion of common resources to container terminal managers in contrast to the valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) types. It is recommended that appropriate resource bundling strategies can turn the common resources into VRIN resources that can be used to obtain desired service performance.Originality/valueRBV theorists suggest that resources that are VRIN types can be the source of competitive advantage. However, the resources can also be common, basic and valuable, a fact that is rarely investigated in the literature. These common resources can be bundled judiciously with other pre-existing resources to create VRIN resources. This research enriches the RBV by empirically validating that VRIN resources are embedded within various common resources bundling strategies.

Container Terminals (CTs) are continuously presented with highly interrelated, complex, and uncertain planning tasks. The ever-increasing intensity of operations at CTs in recent years has also resulted in increasing environmental concerns, and they are experiencing an unprecedented pressure to lower their emissions. Operational Research (OR), as a key player in the optimisation of the complex decision problems that arise from the quay and land side operations at CTs, has been therefore presented with new challenges and opportunities to incorporate environmental considerations into decision making and better utilise the ‘big data’ that is continuously generated from the never-stopping operations at CTs. The state-of-the-art literature on OR's incorporation of environmental considerations and its interplay with Big Data Analytics (BDA) is, however, still very much underdeveloped, fragmented, and divergent, and a guiding framework is completely missing. This paper presents a review of the most relevant developments in the field and sheds light on promising research opportunities for the better exploitation of the synergistic effect of the two disciplines in addressing CT operational problems, while incorporating uncertainty and environmental concerns efficiently. The paper finds that while OR has thus far contributed to improving the environmental performance of CTs (rather implicitly), this can be much further stepped up with more explicit incorporation of environmental considerations and better exploitation of BDA predictive modelling capabilities. New interdisciplinary research at the intersection of conventional CT optimisation problems, energy management and sizing, and net-zero technology and energy vectors adoption is also presented as a prominent line of future research.

This article provides an overview of the applications of operations research (OR) techniques to marine container terminals. The article begins by providing a summary of marine container terminal operations. Following this, a series of decision problems are identified, to which OR techniques have been applied. These include quayside, yard, and landside decision problems. In each section, the problems, technical approaches, and outcomes are described. With respect to quayside decision problems, the specific problems addressed include determination of quayside equipment types, berth allocation, quay crane allocation and scheduling, and operational planning and real‐time decisions related to transportation equipment. Yard decision problems include yard design, storage space allocation, and task assignment for yard handling equipment. Landside decision problems include design of the terminal's landside connection, transport planning, and real‐time control of landside operations. The article provides an overview of the state of the practice. The reader will gain an understanding of the nature of decision problems in marine container terminals, how OR techniques have been used to address these, and the operational improvements made possible through the application of OR techniques to this problem area.

The competitiveness among container terminals is growing due to the positive growth of containerised shipping. The ability to provide efficient services very much depend on the overall efficiency of the container terminal. However, the operation of the container terminal is complex and consists of many subsystems such as the berth and yard. Moreover, the planning and decision making of the berth and yard are usually conducted separately, not as a whole. Therefore, with the lack of integration between these two major subsystems, terminal managers fail to see the impact of the decision made at the berth to the yard and vice versa. This paper presents the application of system dynamics simulation into capturing the operation processes of the berth and yard. The system dynamics model is able to enhance the understanding on the interdependency and relationship between these two subsystems, thus assisting the terminal managers in decision making.

An optimization approach for coupling problem of berth allocation and quay crane assignment in container terminal

Storage planning for outbound container is one of the most important operations in container terminals. It influences almost all successive operations, including storage position allocation for individual container, equipment scheduling, stowage planning and container relocation, etc. This paper studies storage space pre-allocation for outbound containers of arriving ships. Considering the complexity influence of random factors and the coupling relations with other subsystems, rules are collected from the real container terminals and are described in the form of constraint. The decision-making frame with mathematics model and system simulation is proposed, in which mathematics expresses are defined for clearing up objectives, variables and influencing factors of the storage plan problem, and simulation scenarios with the random factors considered are built and run to verify the mathematics model. The methods studied in this paper including constraint satisfying technique, rolling-horizon planning, hybrid approach of mathematics description and the simulation experiment, which are fit for planning problems of other complexity discrete system additionally.