The human talent and its role in ISM Code effectiveness and competitiveness in the shipping industry

The present study empirically evaluates the role of human talent in the effective implementation of quality management systems in the shipping industry context. Specifically, we analyze the relationships among top management commitment to quality, ISM (International Safety Management) Code effectiveness and competitiveness as well as we assess the influence of talent in these associations. We test our research hypotheses using a sample of 199 shipping companies located in Greece. The findings show that ISM Code effectiveness acts as a mediator between top management commitment and shipping company competitiveness, while the different talent philosophies were found to moderate this relationship.     

再谈安全营运与安全管理

借助ISM规则全面实施的时机和港口国对到港船舶实施检查的结果,剖析ISM规则的内在本质,及其在我国航运公司的安全营运与管理中不同实施阶段的主要作用。     

ISM Code对船舶保险除外责任的影响

ISM规则的实施不仅对航运业而且对船舶保险业产生了深远的影响。文中通过总结和介绍ISM规则实施和船舶保险除外责任的变化来诠释这种影响之大,进而从法律的角度提醒广大船公司要更加有效地运行安全与防污染管理体系,避免在船舶保险中出现不应有的损失。     

Incident reporting in Finnish shipping companies

The purpose of the International Safety Management Code (the ISM Code) is to promote safety culture in the maritime industry. Learning the lessons from incidents should help to improve safety performance since incidents and accidents can share the same root causes. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at incident reporting in the Finnish shipping industry, to study the reasons for poor incident reporting and to suggest improvements to increase reporting. The paper consists of a literature study, which focuses on previous studies concerning incident reporting, and an interview study, which focuses on Finnish shipping companies and their personnel. The interview study confirmed that incident reporting does not function properly within the Finnish maritime industry. The maritime personnel have an occupational culture which is incompatible with the rule-based safety management approach provided by the ISM Code. The willingness to report incidents could be increased if all seafarers were involved in the reporting process and the preparation of corrective actions. In addition, the reporting procedures should be streamlined and developed to a more user-friendly direction.     

对体系运行中假记录的探讨

国际安全管理规则（ISM）实施后,各航运公司相继实施了体系化管理,体系的建立与运行推动了各航运公司的各项管理工作,对保障船公司船舶安全与防污染起到了根本性的作用。然而,体系运行的有效性问题一直困扰着各家公司。本文分析了体系运行中＂假记录＂的产生原因、危害及治理方法,仅供同行参考。     

香港地区实施ISM工作现状及思考

文中介绍了香港地区实施ISM规则(国际安全管理规则)机构、立法及实施的相关情况,着重分析了《香港商船(安全)条例》涉及ISM规则的有关规定和执行,总结了香港地区航运公司管理和实施ISM规则的特点,提出了国内ISM/NSM规则的实施及相关工作的建议。     

Critical factors for successful implementation of the ISM Code in some Pacific Islands states

Although the International Safety Management (ISM) Code was fully implemented from July 1st 2002, not all countries signatories to the Code, particularly developing countries such as Pacific Islands states, are successful in the introduction and implementation of the instrument. In this paper, we aim to determine factors that facilitate the successful implementation of the ISM Code particularly for the above-named region. Through a thorough literature review, a model of 11 critical factors for the Code implementation success was proposed. These factors were empirically tested using the triangulation of a survey of a group of maritime administration personnel and shipping companies in Fiji and two indepth interviews with senior officers in the Samoa Maritime Administration during the period June–August 2007. The proposed factors were verified by both survey respondents and interview informants, i.e., that maritime safety awareness rooted in a safety culture, senior management commitment and leadership across organisations and the industry, employee involvement and empowerment, enforcement capability of flag state administrations, application of quality management principles in safety management systems, rationalisation of documentation, among others, are essential to the successful implementation of the Code. This research hopes to contribute to the literature and to provide maritime administrations and shipping companies in the Pacific Islands states with additional reference and information that will help expedite the effective implementation of the ISM Code. The need for future research directions is expressed in this paper. Additional investigations, e.g., conducting the same research in other Pacific Islands states as well as in other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, would enhance the validity and reliability of this study’s findings.     

ISM Code implementation: an investigation of safety issues in the shipping industry

Acknowledging that shipping safety continues to be a major topic of interest in the maritime community, the present study attempts to identify the critical factors of International Safety Management (ISM) Code implementation, to identify the dimensions that describe whether the ISM Code has fulfilled its intended purpose as well as to assess their interrelationships. Moreover, the present study aims to explore whether the fulfillment of the Code’s intended purpose is associated with accident reduction. Evidence was drawn from a sample of 63 masters and chief officers who have hands-on onboard experience on ISM Code implementation and data were analyzed through the use of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), correlation analysis, and binomial logistic regression. Findings indicate that the critical factors of ISM Code implementation can be categorized in the crew-related and the company-related dimensions. Also, the fulfillment of the intended purpose of the ISM Code consists of the factors of safety management system efficiency and increased safety, which were also found to be significantly associated with the crew-related dimension of ISM Code implementation. Finally, results showed that both safety management system efficiency and increased safety increase the probability of accident reduction at the highest level.     

航运公司建立和运行SMS存在问题探讨

ISM/NSM规则的强制实施,进一步规范了航运公司安全与防污染管理活动,提升了航运公司安全与防污染管理水平。文中分析了当前航运公司安全管理体系建立和运行情况及存在的问题,剖析了航运公司建立安全管理体系的一些误区,同时对航运公司安全管理体系运行及维护中常见的问题进行了阐述,并针对航运公司建立及运行安全管理体系存在的问题,对航运公司及海事主管部门提出相应的解决措施及建议。     

非体系航运企业标准化安全制度建设的几点思考

文中针对目前我国非体系航运企业和船舶的基本状况找出了在安全生产过程中存在的主要问题，认为建立健全非体系航运企业安全制度是提高管理水平的关键，运用安全管理体系理念建设非体系航运企业是解决安全生产问题的突破点。     

Enhancing the competitiveness of Korea’s container shipping industry through structural improvements

ABSTRACT

After the collapse of Hanjin Shipping in 2016, Korea faced the task of reconstructing its container shipping industry by enhancing the competitiveness of its shipping companies in a rapidly evolving market environment. Responding to this need for policy design, this study first attempts to understand the industry based on the shipping ecosystem, which comprises the following four areas: shipping finance, collection of cargo, acquisition of ships, and partnership among carriers. Second, it lists the structural problems, along with the remedial policy alternatives, that were identified after conducting in-depth interviews with industry experts, which included mid-level managers. Third, it conducts an importance-performance analysis to classify problems according to their importance and performance, followed by an analytic hierarchy process analysis to define the priorities of policy alternatives. Finally, drawing on the empirical results, the paper concludes with suggestions on an integrated policy package for the container shipping industry.     

Maritime safety and the ISM code: a study of investigated casualties and incidents

In 1993, the International Maritime Organization adopted the International Safety Management (ISM) Code which requires all shipping companies operating certain types of vessels to establish safety management systems. Nevertheless, two decades later, maritime safety remains a concern. This article studies 94 maritime cases investigated by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch in the UK. By providing an analysis of reported casualties and incidents, it highlights current challenges in maritime safety. For each casualty and incident, the study reviews the underlying causal factors. These causal factors are then coded according to the functional sections of the ISM Code, covering various aspects of safety management. To investigate human and organizational factors involved in the casualties and incidents, the human factor analysis and classification system (HFACS) is applied to code the same data. Finally, the relative seriousness of casualties and incidents is considered to discuss the findings from ISM Code and HFACS reviews. The study found that the main challenges pertain to the development of plans for shipboard operations, local shipboard management, and the ability of the company to verify when such practices deviate from best practices or required standards.     

Cost analysis of bulk cargo containerization

ABSTRACT

Bulk cargo containerization (BCC) involves changes in the transportation mode of container shipping for cargo that uses bulk carriers without packing. This topic has recently attracted considerable attention as an alternative transportation method for container cargo. BCC is advantageous because it can address imbalances in the amount of cargo conveyed between the main and back hauls, thereby improving efficiency. A previous survey among companies involved in cargo shipping revealed that in addition to ocean freight, vanning and devanning, and customs clearance costs, consignees’ decisions were the key factor in selecting transport modes. The present study aims to clarify the cost competitiveness of container shipping and identify cost reductions that may increase the use of BCC. To quantitatively check the results of the survey employed in this study, we constructed a model based on consignees’ and container shipping companies’ costs to determine the choice of transport mode for back-haul trade, then examined the incentives for consignees and shipping companies. We found that BCC can be realized by cost reduction on the part of the consignee and profit improvement on the part of the container shipping company for some routes and goods. Although reducing the freight rate would effectively promote BCC, reducing other costs would not have the same effect.     

航运安全文化建设初探

探讨了航运安全文化的起源和发展,介绍了ISM规则、STCW 95公约和PSC检查在航运安全文化建设中的里程碑作用和航运安全文化的观念碰撞,提出了航运安全文化的适用范围、航运安全文化的理念和安全共建的方案。     

Achieving an ASEAN single shipping market: shipping and logistics firms’ perspective

ABSTRACT

To establish an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Single Shipping Market (ASSM) is an important part of ASEAN governments’ overall plan to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. It is expected that a single shipping market will improve the region’s logistics performance and international competitiveness. To achieve this vision, however, the ASEAN countries need to remove any remaining barriers to logistics performance. In this light, the objective of this paper is to identify these barriers and assess their effects on the logistics performance of shipping and logistics firms based in ASEAN countries. Using a questionnaire-based survey, the study revealed several barriers affecting their logistics performance with varying significance among these countries. Unless these barriers from the perspective of the industry are removed, the ability of the shipping and logistics industry to benefit from a liberalized market would be limited. These perceived barriers are examined in detail and strategies to address them are proposed. The ASEAN experience is applicable to similar countries in the process of integrating their international shipping sector as well as contributes to the understanding of the different barriers and how these barriers can affect the logistics performance of shipping and logistics companies.     

Connectivity analysis of the global shipping network by eigenvalue decomposition

ABSTRACT

Maritime shipping necessitates flexible and cost-effective port access worldwide through the global shipping network. This paper presents an efficient method to identify major port communities, and analyses the network connectivity of the global shipping network based on community structure. The global shipping network is represented by a signless Laplacian matrix which can be decomposed to generate its eigenvectors and corresponding eigenvalues. The largest gaps between the eigenvalues were then used to determine the optimal number of communities within the network. The eigenvalue decomposition method offers the advantage of detecting port communities without relying on a priori assumption about the number of communities and the size of each community. By applying this method to a dataset collected from seven world leading liner shipping companies, we found that the ports are clustered into three communities in the global container shipping network, which is consistent with the major container trade routes. The sparse linkages between port communities indicate where access is relatively poor.     

基于ISM规则的安全文化建设

ISM规则提供的是体系化的科学管理方法,总结和借鉴了世界许多领域现代化的管理经验,特别是航运安全管理的经验,是对国际航运安全文化的重大发展。通过ISM规则对安全文化建设的分析,提出航运企业安全文化建设的途径。     

Evaluating economic and environmental value of liner vessel sharing along the maritime silk road

The Belt and Road initiative is a novel exploration of China towards strategic collaboration with Eurasia countries to an extent of a larger scale with higher and deeper level of cooperation. To meet the growing global demand of transportation, increasing numbers of liner shipping companies collaborate and form alliances to share vessel capacity and reduce capital costs. Effective liner shipping vessel sharing is essential for the Belt and Road initiative in terms of building efficient maritime transport networks. In promoting environmental development, shipping companies are required to attain higher environmental standards. However, limited literature relates vessel sharing to environmental performance. This paper studies the impacts of liner vessel sharing from the economic and environmental perspectives. Two container allocation models are developed for the two scenarios: with and without vessel sharing. The carbon emissions in transportation are calculated under both scenarios. Numerical studies are carried out using services along the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic (CIPE) Corridor. Liner shipping companies could benefit from vessel sharing in terms of significant profit improvement. Vessel sharing could also benefit the environment by reducing the CO₂ emissions dramatically.     

Voyage-based statistical fuel consumption models of ocean-going container ships in Korea

ABSTRACT

Accurately estimating fuel consumption of ships is crucial for shipping companies, port authorities, and environmental protection agencies. The bottom-up approach is becoming increasingly popular because it can estimate ship fuel consumption by accounting for ship activity conditions, such as changes in voyage speed, time, and distance; however, its use is still limited when estimating ship fuel consumption. Ship-specific information, such as the daily fuel consumption rate for main and auxiliary engines for every vessel, is expensive to gather, and generally not collected from private shipping companies. To address this research gap, we develop simplified and composite ship fuel consumption models for ocean-going container ships by size using a regression model. To estimate the fuel consumption models for container ships, we rely on ship activity data, including average speed and sailing time, distance, and actual fuel consumption for main and auxiliary engines. This information is obtained from a major container shipping company in Korea. We estimate and validate the parameters associated with fuel consumption for five different container ship sizes, all of which are smaller than the Post-Panamax container ship (15,000 TEU and above).     

Investor herding behaviour in globally listed shipping stocks

ABSTRACT

This study undertakes one of the first empirical attempts to investigate and contribute a set of innovative findings to investor herding behavior and herding spillover effects in globally listed shipping company stock returns. Distinguishing between OECD and Non-OECD markets, herding behavior is tested on a diversified set of shipping companies traded in international equity markets, over different business cycle phases, financial crises, and external shocks. A set of dynamic models, well established in the relevant behavioral finance literature, is implemented. Empirical evidence indicates investor herding behavior in shipping stock returns and herding spillover effects between different shipping sectors, albeit not robust in all cases. These challenging findings can have a material impact on efficient investment and financing decisions of shipping market players.