THE VESSEL TURNAROUND TIME: THE CASE OF SEPANGAR BAY CONTAINER PORT (SBCP) Heather Valarie Benilus

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1 THE VESSEL TURNAROUND TIME: THE CASE OF SEPANGAR BAY CONTAINER PORT (SBCP) Heather Valarie Benilus Politeknik Kota Kinabalu No.4, Jalan Politeknik KKIP Barat, Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia ABSTRACT Logistic industry has become crucial nowadays. During last year budget, a vast amount is located to this industry. Sabah Port Sdn. Bhd. (SPSB) is a company that provides berthing, handling and cargo facilities to its port customers. As the State s main port operator, SPSB has delivered maritime logistics, access and opportunity to Sabah business world. The purpose of this study is to define the ship turnaround time at Sepangar Bay Container Port (SBCP) and proposed a recommendation to decrease the ship turnaround time. Ship turnaround time can be defined as the time it takes between the arrival of a vessel and its departure from port; frequently used as a measure of port efficiency. A shorter ship turnaround times can be translate into lower input costs to suppliers and producers, which would result in lower prices for customers. The methodology used in this study is interview and observation. This activity only being done at the SBCP and it only involved its own staffs. Keywords: logistic, ship turnaround time, Sabah Port, SBCP, port efficiency, berthing INTRODUCTION Logistic industry has become crucial nowadays. During last year budget, a vast amount is located to this industry. Following this, Polytechnic takes chances in introducing a Logistic course in its institutions to enable its students to gain advantages in this booming industry. There are five mode of transportation in Logistic; they are sea, land, air, rail and pipeline. These five modes of transportation are equally important to the logistic industry. So, students should takes initiative to learn more about the industry. One of the players in logistic industry is port. Port is an entry point of goods through sea. It can transport bulk goods to the country. To ensure that the goods transferred to the land, a port should facilitate conducive facilities for the vessels berthing. A conducive facility portrays an efficient port and it will ensure the loading and unloading activity goes smoothly. When everything goes smoothly at the wharf area of the port, the congestion can be avoid. 93

2 This study is mainly about the sea transportation and the focus organization in this paper is Sabah Port.Sabah Port Sdn. Bhd. (SPSB) is a company that provides berthing, handling and cargo facilities to its port customers. As the State s main port operator, SPSB has delivered maritime logistics, access and opportunity to Sabah business world. With the services provided by SPSB, the logistic and supply chain in Sabah is on the growth. The demands from the end user are another factor that makes SPSP important in the logistic industry. Background The ports are the gateway to the nation s economy. Port congestion and delay in freight handling has tremendously dulcified the operational performance of ports. These stagnancy in port activities has made the ports operationally inefficient which in turn has resulted to longer dwell time of cargo in the ports, poor ship turn-round time, block stacking of containers, higher demurrage on importers, higher operating cost of vessels by shipping companies, inadequate berth and space utilization. The globalization also leads to the growth of the ports because people all around the world are doing business borderless, 24/7 which in turn also affects the marine transportations. From this consequent, the major port is trying to improve their services in order to gain more revenue because nowadays shippers are looking for a port with high efficiency and productivity. Shippers are looking for the port which can provide better service such as less turnaround vessel time, less container damage, direct berthing and efficient custom clearance. The ship turnaround time can be defined as the time it takes between the arrival of a vessel and its departure from port; frequently used as a measure of port efficiency. Overall, 90 per cent of international cargo moves through seaports. And 80 per cent of all international cargo travels in containers. It is therefore imperative that ports manage their container operations effectively and efficiently (N. Makiri, UNCTAD Port Management Series-Volume 1, ). National commerce industries are exposed to the pressures of international competition. As the level of port efficiency and performance can have direct impact on a nation s international competitiveness, ports often face pressures to improve efficiency and performance of the services provided, in the effort to lower the overall costs of their operations. Ship operators and freight forwarders consider ship turnaround time to be a crucial indicator of port performance. A shorter ship turnaround times can be translate into lower input costs to suppliers and producers, which would result in lower prices for customers. This emphasizes the significance of port efficiency and performance to any national economy. Therefore, it is important for port management to understand the elements that influence ship turnaround time. There are many way to calculate the ATT such as by weekly basis, standard deviation, based on containers and vessel but eventually the calculation should be useful to benchmark in evaluating ports' ability to efficiently operate the container flows (Ducruet and Merk, Global Issue,2013). The ship turnaround time from few of the ports around the world is as follow; 94

3 Ports Ship Turnaround Time Cochin Port Below Two Days Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust 2.01 days Singapore Port Less than 24 hours Colombo Port Less than 24 hours (Sources from: European Journal of Business and Management) Vessel Turnaround Time from Port around the World In port terminals, the crucial factors that are related to customers satisfaction is ship waiting time. It also be a competitive advantage for a port terminal as it can attract more ships; port with low waiting time can attract more customers and vice versa to a longer waiting period. Waiting and queuing times at berthing area of port terminals are the biggest problem that port managers encounter. Long waiting times have a negative impact on port terminal efficiency and ship managers prefer to berth at a port terminal with low waiting time and high efficiency. The port managements are more concerned with service rates because by increasing the service rate, port efficiency can be dramatically increased; the ship agent will have to abide the rules imposed by the management, otherwise there is a charge to be imposed. By this consequence, the ship management and the port customers are more care with the waiting time, which means they tried to select a port terminal with lower service waiting time. According to Kokila and Abijath, to reduce the turnaround times lies in the fact that for shipping and delivering goods, time is considered as the most important factor than the cost of transporting goods. The purpose of this study is to define the ship turnaround time at Sepangar Bay Container Port (SBCP) and proposed a recommendation to decrease the ship turnaround time. By the solution provided, it can be considered by the SBCP to reduce the ship turnaround. The case study was conducted for only a month. The methods used are only the interview from the staff and observation done by the researcher. Company profile Sabah Ports Sdn. Bhd. (SPSB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suria Capital Holdings Berhad, officially took over the management of all port operations from Sabah Ports Authority on 1 September With eight ports strategically located at both the west and east coasts of Sabah, SPSB provides berthing, handling and cargo facilities to its port customers. As the State s main port operator, SPSB has delivered maritime logistics, access and opportunity to Sabah along with bringing the world to its shores. There are eight ports under the supervision of SPSB. They are Sepangar Bay Container Port, Sepangar Bay Oil Terminal, Kinabalu Port, Kudat Port, Sandakan Port, Tawau Port, Lahad Datu Port and Kunak Port. I. Sapangar Bay Container Port (SBCP) is a dedicated container facility and is positioned as the premier transhipment hub for the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia- Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). 95

4 II. Kota Kinabalu Port handles general cargo, cruise vessels and also provides rollon, roll-off services. III. Sapangar Bay Oil Terminal is a dedicated terminal for the handling of refined petroleum products and liquid chemical serving the west coast of Sabah. IV. The east coast ports;sandakan, Tawau and Lahad Datu handle general cargo and containers as well as fertilizer and palm oil products. V. Kunak Port handles palm oil and palm kernel exports. This study is only concentrated to Sapangar Bay Container Port (SBCP). The problem recognition and the recommendation suggested are mainly for this port. According to annual report in 2016, the total TEUS handled by Sabah Port are TEUS. 68% of that number of TUES was handled by SPCB which is amounting TEUS. The amount are slightly decreasing from the year 2015 but still SPCB is the only port that enable the logistic of the goods from and to Sabah especially to Kota Kinabalu division. According to the statistic, it is obvious that there are always vessels coming to the port and there are activities of loading and unloading at the wharf. With this situation, SBCP should monitor its vessel turnaround time so that it can provide an effective scheduling to its customer. METHODOLOGY The methodology used in this study is interview and observation. Interview can be termed as conducting intensive individual interviews with a small number of respondents to explore their perspectives on a particular idea, program or situation. In this case study, the researcher interviewed Personnel from Administration/ Human Resource Department. In her session, researcher being brief about the history of the SBCP Personnel from Yard Control Section. He briefed the vessel, the document involved and he also answered the entire question being asked by the researcher. Personnel from Yard Control Section. He also briefed the researcher about the activity in yard and wharf The second methodology used in this study is observation. It can be term as an active acquisition by the researcher to get information from the primary sources. For this method, the researcher observed two vessels berthing at the SPCP wharf. From the observation, the researcher can inquire about the study area to the officer in-charge. FINDING Based on the interview conducted with Mr Joseph and Mr Rudy from the vessel and yard planning department, the ship turnaround time at Sabah Port is according to the number of container that the vessel bring at that time. Meaning, if the ship is carrying many container at the time, the ship will stay at the berth for a longer period. This situation will 96

5 leads to the queuing to the next ship. To worsen this situation and will leads to congestion if there were ship bunching. Among the causal that increase the ship turnaround time are: a) Weather In SPCP the barrier that prevents the port to be working productively is the weather condition. According to the chairman of SPSB, the congested situation at SBCP affected by weather conditions (Borneo Post Online, 2016). According to him, SBCP has regularly handled boxes per hour but due to weather conditions in the west coast of Sabah have led to considerable loss of work time thus lowering SBCP s usual productivity rate. Based on the interviewee, the bad weather prevents the machine to function properly and the workers cannot be working properly due to the slippery working area. The Standard of Procedure (SOP) that being followed by SBCP also hinders the operation during the bad weather. Based on this circumstance, it would delay the process of loading and unloading. It would then increase the vessel turnaround time at the SPCB because this inevitable reasons b) Machine breakdown The machine breakdown also can cause the delay of the loading and loading activity. This will then increase the vessel turnaround time. The chances of both causal occurring are seldom. Yet, the monitoring are needed to for avoidance purposes because it will cause the ineffectively of the port. DISCUSSION/RECOMMENDATION Based on the finding, this is a propose recommendation that could be done as a solution to the subject matter. Vessel docking system Vessel docking system is whereby the vessel berthing in a dock that will enable the quay crane to work both sides of the vessel. This method works is by arranging the vessel to dock with a quay cranes on the both sides. The container will then transferred to the yard for the stacking purposes. The vessel enter the dock and fenders along both sides of the Dock are retractable to enable the ships to enter the Docking bay and when the ship is berthed at the desired position the fenders are moved over from both sides, one pushing the vessel until the ship is held centrally in the bay. The advantage of this docking system is it can reduced ship turnarounds times. By working both sides of the vessels the activity of loading and unloading of the container can be fasten. This infrastructure is align for SBCP as it positioned itself as the premier transshipment hub for the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). The proposed berthing system is as below; 97

6 Proposed vessel docking system at SPCB Below are the future works for this recommendation. 1. Need empirical study on how to set up the vessel docking berthing because this berthing system has been implemented in Singapore, Middle East and UK 2. If the berthing system is feasible, it should propose before the expansion program at SBCP commence. To cater the number of vessel berthing, it should have inner and outer berthing 3. Need investment of the machine that being used at the wharf. If in the future SBCP is planning to have this vessel, it should have eight Quay crane and more prime over to transport the container from the wharf to be stack in the yard. REFERENCES Chopra, S. and Meindl, P. (2007), Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Ducruet, C and Merk, O. (2013), Examining Container Vessel Turnaround Time Across the World. Global Issue, Port Technology International, Edition

7 Ngangaji, M ( ), UNCTAD Port Management Series-Volume 1, Cycle TrainForTrade Post Training Programme. Marlow, P.B., and Paixao, A.C. (2003). Measuring Lean Ports Performance. International Journal of Transport Management Suria Group Annual Report Retrieved on February 13, 2018 from 99