Impacts of Information Technology (IT) Systems on the Efficiency of Empty-Container Park Operations for the Port of Melbourne

As disclosed by the Port of Melbourne Corporation in 2015, full import containers significantly outnumber full export containers in the port of Melbourne, indicating that the port has become a major import container location experiencing acute pressures to manage the disequilibrium in trade flows. The report further points to increased container volumes through the port of Melbourne over the decade 2005-2015 – an increase of 650,000 twenty-foot containers. This growth in port-related containerised volumes creates capacity constraints in landside transport infrastructures and container parks’ facilities resulting from increased truck movements in and around the port of Melbourne.\ud As specified by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in 2011, these capacity constraints at container parks resulted from random truck arrivals patterns, which caused depots to alternate periods of low truck traffic activity with periods of excess demand that generated major delays. Also, transport carriers often arrived at container parks to be notified of the unavailability of stocks to attend to empty collections, that is, futile trips occurred on a regular basis.\ud In this line, previous industry studies had noted in as early as 2004 and 2005 the need to implement a vehicle booking system with a view to deliver superior visibility and thus operational gains for the empty-container supply chain in an effort to address the capacity challenges already experienced in and around the port of Melbourne.\ud This thesis examines the proposition that the adoption of information technology is central in integrating and thus streamlining container chain operations resulting in superior supply chain efficiency. For this purpose this research will explore, in a detailed case study, the adoption of the Containerchain portal by some of the empty-container parks in the port of Melbourne. In particular, this thesis seeks to shed light on the impacts this web-based application is having on the integration of chain activities and operational chain efficiency given differentiated empty-container parks and empty-container chains