Selecting ocean carriers in the age of supply chain management : shippers and forwarders' perspective

• Main Author: Gu, Xueqi
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Maritime studies
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/60643
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Ocean carrier selection criteria were extensively examined by various scholars in the past. It was revealed that all the criteria could be categorized into seven dimensions, which are Rate, Customer Service, Operation, Reputation, Infrastructure, Scheduling and Other Factors. At the same time, different scholars reached the consensus that with the variation of environment, ocean carrier selection criteria were keeping on evolving as well. The entrance of supply chain management altered shippers’ way of selecting ocean carriers. Due to the significant influence that supply chain management has on the profitability of business entities, shippers were actively seeking methods to integrate different supply chain parties to achieve high supply chain optimization and in the meantime reducing uncertainties. Consequently, they changed from simply cost-oriented to partnership-oriented, which led to the change of ocean carrier selection criteria simultaneously. However, in the past literature, scholars seldom address how to select ocean carrier in the context of supply chain management, which was identified as a research gap that this paper needs to work on. Dry bulk ocean transportation, as a major sector of the shipping industry, however, was hardly discussed by scholars regarding how shippers select carriers. In addition, a lack of research in how to make such choice in the context of supply chain management turned out to be another research gap. With the above view, this paper was done to provide a guideline as to how to select ocean carriers in the age of supply chain management, with the special focus on dry bulk section. In the paper, totally ten general factors applicable to all sectors and one dry bulk specific factor with different criteria were proposed. Moreover, further exploration of how shippers prioritize eleven factors was carried out by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). At last, the differences of factor prioritization among dry bulk, liquid bulk and container sectors were compared.