Container Terminal Handling Quality
Introduction
In any competitive market, customers focus more on the price and the quality of services offered. In the container transportation market, the quality of services is essential in gaining and maintaining customers. The terminal operators are trying to meet their potential customer’s needs and delivering high quality services at a relatively low cost. In their supply strategy, the container transporters seek in modifying the reliability and speed of their services. For the terminal operators to meet their reliability and speed standards, they are working on minimizing the time the ship takes to depart from the port.
Background
This study aims at offering an operational approach to measure the quality of the container handling terminal services. The central focus will be on the significant performance conditions concerning the quality of container operators. The concept presented will demonstrate an operation perspective on the judgment of the quality of services offered by the container terminals and a way to improve the services. The approach suggests the determination of the the service quality by looking at the difference between customer’s expectations on the services and the actual service delivered.
The pros
The first focus on the measurement of terminal service quality is on the handling (movement) of the containers. Container Handling includes the loading, offloading, checking and recording of damaged and lost goods. According to a study carried by ECLAC, container terminals were considered to be more reliable in their delivery time. Now terminal operators are minimizing their loading and offloading time to match with the increased container transportation need. Their time minimization strategy includes investment in gantry cranes, semi-automated production solutions and stacking equipment ( Marek,201 8). Container terminal operators are ensuring that they do delivery at the right time as communicated to the customer.
The terminals charge their services according to the customer
‘s desired quality levels. For the container terminals, their customers need to understand that receiving quality services will require money. Terminal operators base their service costs calculation on the desired quality level, the transportation distance, the size of shipment, weight and the handling difficulties experienced. Terminals group their containers based on the type of the customer and the requirements of the customer. The potential and regular customers plus the ones requiring high quality services pay more than the others. However, willingness of a customer to spend an ample amount of money depends on their observation on the quality. Containers transportation firms with a reliable negotiation power, high-value product and ones located in significant clusters have a high transportation quality that customers are willing to pay.
The opposing points
The congestion at the handling terminals has imposed a significant challenge to the efficiency of the service. As the terminals strife to minimize the handling time and ensure faster loading, the terminals face excessive supply. Container transportation firms are failing in outweighing or balancing their workforce and the demand of their services (Sayareh.et.al. 2016). Terminal customers have judged the time between the Inland transportation departure time and the arrival of the maritime containers to be too long. Terminals services are therefore not delivered at the agreed time or with the customer tolerance time. The time taken for container scan inspection is equivalent to 5 days of railway transport. The time challenge has made it difficult for the container terminals to provide quality and reliable services to their customers. The problem can consequently result of loosing of potential customers.
Terminal’s transportation organizations should determine their rates by calculations of costs incurred during the service production process instead of service quality. The quality of service is hard to define and measure. According to terminal customers, the quality of services has become an indispensable factor influencing their choice of the terminal in the competitive market (Mirčeti.et.al. 2018). Issues tackled in past container handling studies show how to improve the quality of the service. However, how to measure the service quality and what tools to use in measuring has not been tackled. Therefore, it means that terminal operators consider pricing the costs of their services based on their services production process rather than the level of services quality offered.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our paper has shown that reliability is the most significant quality determinant in the terminal’s operations. Concerning past container handling studies done, delivery time was argued to be the primary concern. Customer’s satisfaction determined by the terminal transportation time, urgency in handling complaints, and accuracy in their services information. In addition to that, the costs incurred during quality improvement by the terminals don’t need compensation by charging higher transportation rates. Quality improvements should result in a reduction of the transportation costs.
References
Marek, R. (2018). The evaluation of the attractiveness of the marine container terminal sector: analysing the polish industry. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 58, p. 01018). EDP Sciences.
Mirčetić, D., Maslarić, M., Nikoličić, S., Bojić, S., & Torok, A. (2018). Improving Logistics Processes in Inland Container Terminal. Pomorski zbornik, 55(1), 71-90.
Sayareh, J., Iranshahi, S., & Golfakhrabadi, N. (2016). Service quality evaluation and ranking of container terminal operators. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics, 32(4), 203-212.
Wiegmans, B., & Behdani, B. (2018). A review and analysis of the investment in, and cost structure of, intermodal rail terminals. Transport Reviews, 38(1), 33-51.