Development of logistics and global supply chains and their impact on seaports
<\/strong>The dynamic development of the global economy observed over the last decade, stimulated by processes of deregulation of virtually all types of markets and trade liberalization (WTO), has led to a strong growth in global trade, unprecedented on this scale. Between 1998 and 2008, the average global GDP growth was slightly over 3%, which in effect generated a 5.8% growth in global exports during this period (Figure 1).<\/p>
The higher dynamics of trade development compared to global GDP, resulting from progressing globalization processes, had a strong impact primarily on the growth of maritime trade. The development of maritime trade, whose share in global trade in quantitative terms currently reaches over 84% and continues to grow, reaching over 8.2 billion tons of cargo moved by sea, in turn stimulated the dynamic development of the global maritime fleet and seaports. These processes, the dynamics of which were slowed down by the current economic crisis—presumably only for a short time—are accompanied by the phenomenon of strong competition in commodity and transport markets and the resulting processes of concentration of cargo flows (mainly containerized), and consequently capital and entity-production concentration in the maritime shipping sector and in seaports.<\/p>
In order to ensure smooth and efficient—in terms of cost and time—flow of cargo streams in land-sea relations on a global scale, as well as the accompanying streams of services provided for them, along with information, documents, and financial resources, logistics was introduced on a wide scale. However, the implementation of logistics solutions did not occur either too dynamically or sufficiently evenly across individual links of the circulation phase. Some entities—transnational corporations and leading carriers—implemented them quickly and in full, while others—including seaports (port authorities and terminal operators)—did so quite sluggishly and usually half-heartedly, believing that creating a logistics center would automatically solve the problem of integrating into the logistics transport chain.
This concept, i.e., the link of the logistics (intermodal) transport chain, based on a traditional and rather static approach to logistics, did indeed set new, additional functions and tasks with a logistics profile for seaports in their existing model of organization and management of resources and port activities (port economic space), including those related to land management, but they were not treated as overly burdensome, requiring deep changes and adjustment actions. Most ports perceived them merely as a requirement to build distribution and logistics centers on their premises or in their immediate vicinity for active logistics operators using port services, as well as to expand and modernize port infrastructure and superstructure and create facilities for forwarding and logistics activities in the port. At most, port companies created a logistics department in their organizational structures, which in reality changed nothing in the traditional scope and forms of their typically transport-oriented focus. Only a few ports implemented logistics management concepts and actually managed processes according to logistics requirements, developing logistics activities and offering logistics services independently on a larger scale, transforming their existing petrified structures into modern logistics systems. Only the largest container ports of the Far East, US ports, and leading EU ports did so.<\/p>
As a result, despite enormous progress in the development of logistics in the production, trade, and transport sectors (maritime shipping, international road and rail transport), seaports at the end of the last decade still lagged significantly behind the applicable standards in this field in their vast majority. Furthermore, they were characterized—which in a sense persists to this day—due to their management and internal port administration systems being different from their environment, by significant isolation from other links of the modern transport chain, which now constitutes an integral part of the logistics supply chain. They were also treated, and not always due to their technical and technological shortcomings, as the greatest barrier to the development of international trade and transport on both a regional and global scale. And in many cases, they are still perceived as such. This is primarily due to the lack of consistency of their systems and management models with the logistics concept of international trade organization and the new integrated network distribution model and optimization of channels—both supply and sales—as well as their failure to adapt to the standards of logistics supply chain management.<\/p>
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 6\/2009.<\/p>
6764_Logistyka2009-6s15.pdf<\/a>