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This study proposes practical digitalization strategies and well-grounded evaluation criteria for maritime container supply chains.

The authors identified the status of supply chain digitalization of the Port of Busan in South Korea and developed three digitalization strategies based on industry requirements and consultations with port experts. The authors proposed 11 evaluation criteria for examining the main digitalization strategies in the supply chain operations reference model, based on a survey among 46 experts and used multi-criteria decision-making approaches to prioritize the strategies and evaluation criteria.

The results delineate the status of the digitalization of a real-world port-focal supply chain. The model can be successfully customized to include well-grounded evaluation criteria for digitalization strategies, and presents a practical way to advance the supply chain digitalization strategies. Based on the survey and evaluation, the authors find that increasing data accessibility and improving quality are preferred to adopting a data and information sharing platform.

As the study is limited to the Port of Busan, future case studies could be undertaken to container supply chains driven by different regional ports.

Stakeholders, such as truckers, terminal operators, and shipping liners, might consider the proposed strategies and evaluation criteria when digitalizing their supply chains.

By identifying the needs and specifications of maritime container supply chain digitalization strategies, developing evaluation criteria, and conducting a case study for proof of concept, the study proposes an operational management process with practical, real-world benefits for port-focal supply chains.

A large part of maritime container supply chain costs is generated by carriers in port hinterland logistics. Carriers which operate in the hinterland are under pressure to reduce costs and increase profitability, and they face challenges of fierce price competition. This study aims to explore how collaboration is perceived and implemented by carriers in truck container logistics in the port hinterland as a way to tackle these issues.

This study adopts a qualitative multiple case study approach. Qualitative interviews with carriers in the port hinterland of Hamburg, Germany, were conducted and analyzed using grounded theory.

The study reveals two collaboration types in the hinterland, based on the different carriers' interpretation of market conditions as changeable or as given, driving their collaboration mindsets and strategic actions: The developer, who has a proactive collaboration mindset and practices strategic maneuvers toward changing poor market conditions through collaboration, and the adapter, who has a defensive collaboration mindset and perceives market conditions as given and constraining collaboration.

The qualitative results will help researchers better understand how collaboration practices depend on the carriers' subjective interpretations and perceptions of the market.

Based on the findings, managers of carriers gain an understanding of the different types of actors in their market and the relevance of acknowledging these types. Consequently, they can design appropriate strategic measures toward collaboration.

The findings for the first time provide exploratory insights of carriers' mindsets.

Container shipping companies face various risks with different consequences that are required to be mitigated. Limited empirical research has been done on identifying and evaluating risk management strategies in shipping operations with different risk consequences. This paper aims to identify the appropriate risk mitigation strategies and evaluate the relative importance of these strategies.

Literature review and interviews were used to identify and validate the appropriate risk mitigation strategies in container shipping operations. A questionnaire with a Likert five-point scale was then conducted to rank the identified risk mitigation strategies in terms of their overall effectiveness. Top six important strategies were selected to evaluate their relative importance under three risk consequences (i.e. financial, reputation and safety and security incident related loss) through using another questionnaire with paired-comparison. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was then conducted to analyse the paired-comparison questionnaire.

After conducting a systematic literature review and interviews, 18 mitigation strategies were identified. The results from the first questionnaire show that among the 18 strategies, the top three are “form alliances with other shipping companies”, “use more advanced infrastructures (hardware and software)” and “choose partners very carefully”. After conducting fuzzy AHP, the results show that shipping companies emphasize more on reducing the risk consequence of financial loss; and “form alliance with other shipping companies” is the most important risk mitigation strategy.

This paper evaluates the risk mitigation strategies against three risk consequences. Managers can benefit from the systematic identification of mitigation strategies, which shipping companies can consider for adoption to reduce the operational risk impact.

The literature on Maritime Transportation (MT) is experiencing a transition phase where the focus of the research is repositioning. It registered steep growth in recent years with its beginning articles on the concepts of cost minimization to the current focus on achieving sustainable operational effectiveness using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Thus, this becomes a right time to investigate the trajectory of research on MT.

The proposed study aims to explore the potential of data analytics techniques such as data mining and network analytics to reflect the trajectory of research in the maritime supply chain over time. This study identifies the eight main dimensions of the research published under maritime paradigm through network analytics. The in-depth review of these dimensions rendered us to segregate them further into sub-dimensions for the ease of understanding and interpretability. Further, the text mining is employed to extract thematic evolution of the research.

The evolved themes are completely exclusive from the conventional MT research with artificial intelligence, digital storage, waste management and biofuels emerging as contemporary themes. It is found that although there are a sufficient amount of literature on sustainable port practices but their policy implications are still underexplored. The inter-dimension research is needed to achieve the motive of economic efficiency and environmental sustainability simultaneously.

The study has contributed on the methodology side of conducting literature reviews. The dimensions, sub-dimensions and themes are obtained using data analytics tools and techniques. This omits the possibility of personal bias and thus making the results verifiable.

Managing container shipping logistics requires people with good competencies, especially in the time of new challenges. The purpose of this paper is to validate a new framework of competencies for container shipping logistics professionals.

The competency framework was proposed through a comprehensive literature review process followed by in-depth interviews with senior maritime logistics executives both in Singapore and South Korea. It contains three groups of business-, logistics- and management-related competencies, with each group further being classified into generalist and maritime-specific skills and knowledge. A confirmatory survey was also conducted in both countries. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software and thematic analysis technique.

It was found that all competencies proposed in this framework are important and perceived to contribute to work performance of container shipping logisticians. Findings also revealed that those competencies related to management are more important and can contribute to work performance of container shipping logisticians more than those of logistics and business nature.

The proposed and validated framework is original as it is the first framework for container shipping logisticians. This lays the background for future research on competency-based education and training programs for logisticians in container shipping logistics and other sectors of the maritime supply chain. Findings of this research can help senior management identify important competencies which are critical for container shipping logisticians to acquire, and design subsequent training and education programs accordingly.

The increasing demand for high-quality logistics services has forced container shipping firms to decrease logistics service failure to retain the customers. This study thus aims to apply organizational information processing theory (OIPT) to construct a maritime supply chain collaborative decision-making model and examine its impact on logistics service performance.

In total, 142 usable questionnaires were collected from questionnaire survey. A two-step structural equation modeling approach including confirmatory factor analysis was subsequently performed to test the hypotheses.

The results show that internal information integration positively impacts external information integration, that external information integration positively impacts collaborative decision-making, and that collaborative decision-making positively impacts logistics service performance for container shipping firms. However, a relationship between internal information integration and collaborative decision-making was not found in this study.

This study primarily examines collaborative decision-making from the view of container shipping firms. Future research including other supply chain members is needed to generalize the results and could also incorporate other factors such as relationship quality and culture, into the model to address this issue.

To decrease the occurrence of logistics failures and improve service quality in the maritime logistics process, it is suggested that container shipping firms apply information technology for acquiring and assimilating logistics information internally and externally across the supply chain to facilitate decision-making.

This study contributes to the knowledge about the antecedents and impacts of collaborative decision-making for container shipping firms in Taiwan. Particularly, in line with OITP, the findings indicate that container shipping firms can facilitate logistics decision-making and strategy formulation through information integration, which in turn enhances logistics service performance.

Despite a hangover from the worldwide economic crisis, international trade rebounded nicely with a record-level growth in late 2010. A sharp rise in international trade has sparked the international traffic growth. A majority of this traffic growth originated from maritime logistics which could move cargoes in large volume and at cheaper freight costs. Due to its cost-efficiency and easy access, maritime logistics typically accounts for more than half of the worldwide freight volume. However, maritime logistics poses a greater supply chain risk, since ocean carriers used for maritime logistics are more vulnerable to unpredictable weather conditions, piracy attacks, terrorist hijacking, and cargo damages on the open sea than any other modes of transportation. Also, given the vast areas that maritime logistics covers, it is more difficult to protect maritime logistics activities from potential hazards and threats.

To better protect maritime logistics activities from potential security lapses, this chapter introduces and develops a variety of systematic security measures and tools that were successfully used by best-in-class companies and government entities across the world. Also, this chapter proposes a total maritime security management model as a way to formulate maritime risk mitigation strategies. To elaborate, this chapter sheds light on the roots of maritime security measures and tools, the ways that those measures and tools are best utilized, the roles of advanced information technology in maritime security from the global supply chain perspectives, the visualization and identification of potential maritime and its related supply chain risks, and policy guidelines that will help enhance maritime security.

Severe disruptions to maritime supply chains, including port closures, congestion and shortages in shipping capacity, have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper’s purpose is to explore flexibility-based countermeasures that enable actors in maritime supply chains to mitigate the effects of disruptions with different characteristics.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with shipping lines, shippers, forwarders and ports. Data on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects and countermeasures were collected and compared with data regarding the 2016–2017 Gothenburg port conflict.

Spatial, capacity, service and temporal flexibility emerged as the primary countermeasures, whilst important characteristics of disruptions were geographical spread, duration, uncertainty, criticality, the element of surprise and intensity. Spatial flexibility was exercised in both disruptions by switching to alternative ports. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring capacity flexibility included first removing and then adding vessels. Shipping lines exercising service flexibility prioritised certain cargo, which made the spot market uncertain and reduced flexibility for forwarders, importers and exporters that changed carriers or traffic modes. Experience with disruptions meant less surprise and better preparation for spatial flexibility.

Understanding how actors in maritime supply chains exercise flexibility-based countermeasures amid disruptions with different characteristics can support preparedness for coming disruptions.

Comparing flexibility-based measures in a pandemic versus port conflict provides insights into the important characteristics of disruptions and the relevance of mitigation strategies. The resilience of maritime supply chains, although underexamined compared with manufacturing supply chains, is essential for maintaining global supply chain flows.

With the diverse, heterogeneous nature of relationships being a key characteristic of service supply chains, their management is an important area for consideration. This is particularly true in the maritime logistics industry, yet the factors that lead to this heterogeneity are less well understood. This paper aims to explore the structure of relationships within the maritime logistics network and determine why they vary.

Interviews were carried out with 41 practitioners involved in the Taiwanese maritime logistics network. The data from these interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis and quasi-quantification.

The interviews identify that structural holes exist within this maritime logistics network, and that these particularly influence the relationships within this sector with ports being significantly affected. However, five factors are particularly identified that can further impact the strength of these relationships. Often, weak links between ports and both cargo owners and freight forwarders emerge as value-added services are provided by the network.

The findings are framed in a Taiwanese context, where cultural and political norms may give different results to other geographical regions. The research also limits consideration to containerized flows.

By providing detailed insights into relationship structures within the maritime logistics network, managers can take steps to develop appropriate links with other members of the network, reflecting upon the factors that lead to heterogeneity.

This paper expands knowledge on logistics service supply chains, identifying the importance of relationships in a derived demand environment. For maritime researchers, specific factors leading to relationship heterogeneity in the network are detailed, to inform future research.