A case study of determinants detention charges for container export shipments

The world trade and cargo transportation have been dramatically change based on the increasing demand for value-added logistics services and the integrated supply chains that looking forward to the concept of inter or multi modal transport systems.One of the international shipping businesses which apply the transport systems concept with numerous controls or regulations is export shipments.Within the integrated supply chains cycle in export shipment, when something goes wrong or when one of the key players fails to comply with the regulations, it can result in penalties, delays, and unexpected costs.In this case study, the researcher has selected one of the local forwarder in Johor Bahru that provides freight forwarding services and custom clearance for import and export shipments.It was identified that this company currently has to pay numerous extra costs, especially detention charges. Detention charges have been considered as extra costs that need to being waived by the forwarder company on behalf of the customer (exporter). This study is a qualitative in nature and the secondary data collected was analyzed using field observation based on analyses of invoices produced by the port operator.Findings for this study will be based on three months invoices of export containers shipments within October until December 2017.The results are in the form of frequency analysis and it can be interpreted by using graphs and tables through MS Excel.The researcher proposes the company to impose 1% deposit payment per export container from forwarding charges to cover the charge that incurred after gate closing time.Further, to cover another charge that incurred due to shut out or change of vessel, the researcher propose that all drivers in the company must able to check and report any defects in daily basis.This method can be cost effective as they can take early actions and supply sufficient hauliers to deliver customers (exporters) orders into port