Axiomatic design and simulation of mobile harbor system concepts

Abstract

Worldwide maritime container transport has gradually been increasing over time and demand for container terminal services has been increasing as well. As a consequence, various countries have increased their container terminal capacity to survive fierce global competition. This paper develops several ways to increase the productivity of container terminals. Three couplings or inefficiencies in existing port and Mobile Harbor designs were identified. First, the porting of transshipment containers across the land-sea interface represents an unnecessary function and thus a design coupling. Second, in the integrated Mobile Harbor unit, the physical integration of the two functions ``unload container`` and ``transfer container between land and sea`` into an integrated Mobile Harbor system may give rise to an operational inefficiency since the ``unload container function`` is unnecessary when the MH units travel between sea and land. Third, to reduce container handling, a batch-pallet system is proposed. Performance evaluation is then conducted via simulation to find the appropriate alternative among the derived alternatives for the Mobile Harbor for various target markets. The results of the evaluation reveal why the smaller type of Mobile Harbor is more cost effective in small volume markets than a larger unit. This result is derived with simulation model assumptions that is all Mobile Harbor alternatives has same operation logic; First is the Mobile Harbor does not required to wait for full load. Second is assuming no Mobile Harbor``s berthing/docking time. Third is the larger Mobile Harbor design does not allow parallel docking at the inland berth.