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When port authorities or terminal operators set the free time or increase storage density, the decision is often made without a clear understanding of their effects on throughput and rehandling productivity. This is partly because practical methods that deal specifically with the effect of dwell time on throughput and productivity are limited in the literature; hence the motivation for this work. This paper introduces simple methods to evaluate the effect of container dwell time and storage policies on import throughput, storage density, and rehandling productivity. The analysis considers two import storage strategies 1) non-mixed - no stacking of new import containers on top of old ones, and 2) mixed - stacking of new import containers on top of old ones. The results highlight the effect dwell time has on throughput and rehandling productivity. For the non-mixed storage policy, the increasing container dwell time lowers throughput and average stack height - resulting in an increase in rehandling productivity. On the other hand, for the mixed storage policy, the increasing container dwell time raises throughput and average stack height - resulting in a decrease in rehandling productivity. Using the presented methods, port authorities and terminal operators are able to assess and quantify the benefits of their decisions regarding container free time and subsequently make an informed decision.

AN interesting comment from the Salisbury and South Wilts team of industrialists who put the first Local Productivity Council Circuit Scheme into operation in their area suggests that this scheme may prove invaluable in awakening general interest in, and in giving practical impetus to, increased productivity at all levels.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that determines the strategy of owning and renting trucks in combinations with internal truck scheduling and storage allocation problems in container terminals.

To deal with this complicated problem, a two-level heuristic approach is developed, in which the integration problem is decomposed into two levels. The first level determines the daily operations of the internal trucks, while the second level determines the truck employment strategy based on the calculation in the first level.

The results show that: even if the using cost of owned yard trucks is much lower than the cost of rented yard tucks, terminal companies should not purchase too many trucks when the purchasing price is high. In addition, the empirical truck employment strategies, which are purchasing all the trucks or renting all the trucks, are not cost-effective when compared with the proposed yard truck employment strategy.

The paper provides a novel insight for the internal truck employment strategy in container terminals which is the determination of the strategy of employing renting and outsourcing yard trucks to meet operational daily transportation requirements and minimize the long-term cost of employing yard trucks. A mathematical model is proposed to deal with the practical problem. Also, this study presents better solution than empirical method for employing different types of yard truck. Thus, in order to obtain more benefit, terminal companies should employ the proposed yard truck employment strategy.

The purpose of this study is to enhance material conservation and further the knowledge of efficient material management practices on construction sites. This study investigated contractors’ material management practices on construction sites in Nigeria. The factors influencing material conservation on construction sites were also examined.

Data were collected through a survey of 125 contractors who were administered with structured questionnaire, which resulted in 82 valid returned questionnaire. Data collected was analyzed using frequency, importance, utility and severity indexes.

This study found checking materials delivered to a site for specification, use of security personnel to safeguard materials and analysis of materials as key material management practices used on construction sites. Critical factors influencing material management are materials double-handling, management of surplus materials, subsequent design changes, excessive paperwork and not receiving materials at the expected time.

The implementation of the material management practices identified in this study will support contractors to efficiently manage materials on construction sites. The factors influencing material conservation reported in this study will also help contractors understand the critical factors that may affect material management in their construction sites and make better plans for future projects.

This study has reported key issues confronting contractors on the conservation of materials on construction site and various material management practices suitable for application in a wide range of infrastructure projects. This is significant because the construction industry is recording outrageous cost and time overruns of infrastructure projects, which are vital to economic prosperity of nations. The issues and panaceas presented in this study had received scant consideration in construction literature in the sub-Sahara Africa. This study represents a novel synthesis and adds value to knowledge in a manner that has not been reported in previous studies.

In today's globally competitive environment, customers only want to pay for value‐added activity. They are not willing to pay for inefficiencies, such as those incurred through extra motion, or time spent searching for data, information, or tools. Although these wastes may be transparent to customers, they usually manifest themselves in the company's market share and bottom line. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the visual workplace helps increase efficiency by eliminating non‐value added activities. The visual workplace improves performance by providing information, enabling workers through self‐direction and empowerment to quickly make decisions without requiring oversight. While its practice in the office environment is increasing, it is still not as consistently practiced as it is in the manufacturing environment.

Utilizing benchmarking, a case study approach and analysis was conducted.

Visual workplace practices are very common in manufacturing environments. While the practices and usefulness are just as useful in business process environments, there is found to be a reluctance to fully embrace the practices.

The application of visual work practices requires business leaders to create, utilize, and support visual communication tools to manage their business. Its usage can be effectively applied to business processes to eliminate inefficiencies and decrease lost time.

The usefulness of visual workplace practices, once embraced by business leaders, will increase business performance by increasing efficiency and reducing waste.

AS readers will know, from the time the Committee was appointed we were against it. It is the Bullock Committee that recommended workers for the Boardroom that we are referring to. We were convinced that the scheme was wrong in concept, that it would not work, that in the main workers did not want to burden themselves with policy decisions.

THIS country is suffering from a serious shortage of skilled workers. This fact was brought into sharp focus when John Brown, the famous shipbuilders, announced two weeks ago that it had been necessary for them to decline a £5 million order because of a lack of labour in the steel and allied trades. The firm and the size of the potential order ensured national attention, but it cannot be accepted as an isolated instance. When the Ministry of Labour tells us that although 3,124 mostly skilled men entered shipbuilding and marine engineering during the last five weeks for which figures are available, but that there remained 2,860 unfilled jobs, or that 3,264 taken into metal manufacturing left 4,637 vacancies, there is need for concern and investigation.

Professor Rosenberg argues that, in the US at least, the traditional department store, faced with rising expenses, is in danger of becoming the victim of the ‘wheel of retailing’ hypothesis. In order to survive, running costs may have to be cut by 10%; one way is to re‐appraise the role of physical distribution — or retail logistics as it is described in the States.

Vast sums of money are paid out each year in the UK so that enterprises may hold stocks of materials, fuel, work‐in‐progress and finished goods. The holding costs of UK manufacturing alone for 1979 could well be in the region of £15bn, suffice it to say, an amount of great magnitude running into billions of pounds. There is a tendency on the part of materials management to over‐stock because “Thou shalt not run out of stock” is considered by many to be avoiding a cardinal sin. This means that in addition to carrying stocks which may not be required for some time the firms concerned also have to cover certain holding costs unnecessarily. Stocks kept on one side for “a rainy day” may in actual fact cost more in holding costs than their appreciation in value. Increased stock levels will in addition to increasing holding costs also increase risk, (see Figure 1).

SPEAKING at a meeting of the Engineering Industry Marketing Group of the Institute of Marketing recently, Sir Montague Finniston, FRS, FMS, made an attack on the future plans of the British Steel Corporation. He maintained that to make substantial cuts in the Corporation's steelmaking capacity was “absurd”.