Tag Archives: Shipping

The Megamax-24 container ship

Posted on November 8, 2017 by | 1 comment

It seems that despite all the fuss last year about the size of container ships and all the studies showing that they should not be built, the trend is continuing.  I’ve maintained all along that the cost savings just can’t be ignored, and big ships will continue, maybe getting even bigger.   Now we see there’s not a reversal yet, despite the academics. These new ships will be in the range of 24000 containers.  Mike Wackett’s article does a good job of examining the tradeoffs and the actual geometry and stacking of the containers that’s contemplated. And see the followup piece below in the same journal the next day.

Another interesting fact in the story is the divergence on what to use for energy. One line is going for LNG power, the other for conventional fuel with stack scrubbers. But clearly the environmental concerns are holding up, and companies are making plans to deal with the new regulations on environmental emissions from ocean carriers.

There’s been some written about the efficacy of scrubbers vs LNG and the economic and engineering tradeoffs aren’t totally clear, but clearly there are merits on both sides of that debate.
The Loadstar

Mike Wackett
via Latest newbuild ULCVs could be even bigger: introducing the Megamax-24 – The Loadstar

This followup piece is interesting in that more people are shipping smaller packages than container-size.  This means that consolidation will be a key function.  that is where 3PLs have a role. The carriers and especially ports need to get in that service business also, and make the process seamless for their end user customers.  It’s a big challenge, requiring a lot of cooperative activity. Not the carriers’ or ports’ strong point.

Of course we could use 20 foot containers instead of 40’s but that would just push the problem down a bit.  Short term it might be viable though.

The Loadstar

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via Bigger ships, smaller shipments… a circle that needs to be squared – The Loadstar

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Sustainability

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Safety & Shipping Review 2017

Posted on June 14, 2017 by | Leave a comment

 

Maritime losses at sea are always worth reviewing. Allianz, a major insurer, has published this report on 2016 shipping incidents, and trends to be expected in 2017 and beyond. See the pdf below for the full report.

This review focuses on key developments in maritime safety and analyzes shipping losses (of over 100 gross tons) during the 12 months prior to December 31, 2016. It also identifies some of key risk management challenges the industry faces moving forward.

Source: Safety & Shipping Review 2017 – Supply Chain 24/7 Paper

Allianz_AGCS_Safety_Shipping_Review_2017

 

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Posted in Logistics, Shipping, Supply Chains

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Physical Internet Initiative

Posted on June 13, 2017 by | Leave a comment

 

The Physical Internet initiative, started in 2013, is active in 5 European countries.  Here’s a note about who is involved.

  They have a conference in Austria on July 4-6 of this year. http://www.pi.events/

A standard like this could radically change the ocean container shipping business. It would affect landside operations as well.

Among other things it proposes a new form of smart shipping container called a pi-container, which would be able to interact with its contents  as well as with external systems to relay many facts about both the products states and the cargo position. The smart container would also be sized much smaller than a standard ocean shipping container, to support smaller package transport better, and to allow greater unitization and simpler and more automated transloading capability.

But ocean carriers have the largest upfront investment in their standardized container specs, since they must be designed into ships.  It would be very disruptive to have to replace all the current ships, so the path to adoption is clearly long, but the push is coming in some form. The same goes to some extent for air, rail  and truck, but since they often handle smaller product unit sizes anyway and the capital equipment is less costly (except in the case of air, which uses smaller custom containers anyway, and do not match the remaining standards). In the case of air, cargo is frequently carried in passenger planes so the cost is covered by the people not the cargo.  And a lot of air freight is package transport anyway since small size and high value are prerequisites for the much more costly air freight.

I think attention needs to be paid to the economics of migrating to the standard.  In the case of the shipping container the economics drove the transformation.  Economics must drive progress on a new model for transport as well.

Source: Physical Internet: simulation | TRACE

There are some real heavyweights involved in the initiative. Their website is below. It is intended as an open standard, that would encourage all carriers and shippers to use the ideas to simplify cooperation and handling of products during shipment, as well as increase visibility to the discrete product level and allow finer sensing of the many quality dimensions products of varying sorts need during shipment and delivery.

  physical internet initiative

Source: Physical Internet Initiative

Their publications are listed in a tab on their site.

Like most standards groups, we don’t know nor can we predict whether this standard will take hold. It has some big retail and grocery backers, but that is no guarantee.

There aren’t any after 2013, which raises the question whether this initiative is now defunct.

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Posted in Logistics, Managerial Econ, Ports, Production Operations, Service Management, Strategy, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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