THE BACKGROUND
Since
the beginning of containerization , the shipping industry has shown enviable
developments in increased productivity, vessel capacity, speed ,safety ,
reduction in service time and cost. Despite these achieved efficiencies, marine
container logistics has been suffering from severe trade imbalances between the
major trading regions. And these imbalances cause one of the biggest hidden
costs to the shipping industry– repositioning of empty containers! As per
an article appeared in the Shippingwatch , every year Maersk Line
moves around 4 million empty container from point A to point B which costs
around USD 1 billion.
Drewry
Shipping Consultants estimated that there were over 82 million port to port
moves of empty TEUs worldwide in 2010. The Port of Los Angeles alone
reported 831,370 empty TEU shipments during the first half of 2011,
representing over 42% of their outbound container traffic.
Empty
Containers are repositioned at various levels , namely Global ,interregional, regional and local.
(b) The
inter-regional level involves either
balancing repositioning inside a wide geographical area ( within Asia , Europe
, ISC) or on a leg finally leading to global repositioning ( Tuti / Chennai
> Colombo / Port Kelang > Europe / USA).
(c) The
regional level involves the empty
balancing between ports / ICDs of same region
(Cochin to Tuti / Mangalore /Bangalore/Coimbatore) by road , rail or by
sea using coastal services.
(d) The Local
level involves empty shunting between marine terminal and depots, the storage and maintenance issues.
Each
empty container move involves fuel and electrical consumption by ships,
terminals, trucks, and railroads and results in excessive unproductive empty
vehicle miles in a region. Hence, another important aspect to be considered associated
with repositioning empty containers is the carbon footprint.
Due
to insufficient port / depot infrastructure and poor logistics management
strategies of the carriers, the whole process of empty container evacuation
used to be cumbersome , time consuming and expensive. This situation demands
for an empty container management strategy which rationalizes the
repositioning, storage and maintenance of empty containers in major importing
regions. For formulating a suitable management strategy, issues mentioned in
the below chart are to be addressed.
MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
Various
empty container logistics management optimization strategies for minimizing the
cost to carriers are currently either being explored or implemented to a
certain extent. The most popular strategies includes :
(i)
Effective service net work
design with empty container reposition considerations to avoid vessel calls
dedicated to empty repositioning.
(ii)
Matching cargo to empty containers
to reduce empty frequency
(iii)
Design of a empty storage
& maintenance network
(iv)
Transportation options for
less expensive repositioning.
Among
the upcoming management strategies to reduce the energy, cost and effort to
reposition empty container , the most popular one is the concept of folding containers.
Presently a number of options are under various stages of implementation,
including Staxxon folding/nesting container technology (New Jersey), Holland
Container Innovations (Delft), CargoShell (Rotterdam) and Foltainer (Brisbane),
all of them have developed their own collapsible or composite container
designs. If empty containers can be folded and nested and moved in sets
of 2 or more, occupying the same space
and dimensions as one container, operators
could save huge money on account
of transportation, handling and storage.
Another
recent innovation is the Tworty Box,
two 20 ft containers that can be linked together to form a single 40 ft unit ! The
first tworty box completed its maiden voyage from Hamburg to Montreal on the
containership OOCL Montreal.
Even
though the empty container repositioning is a non-revenue generating, complex, expensive
and undesirable exercise, it is an integral part of the maritime sector, which
balances demand and supply between regions. Ultimately only time will tell
whether it is folding containers, tworty
boxes, trans-loading, or some other solution to address this growing global
issue .
