Supply Chain Information for Collaborative Port Allocation

Abstract

There has been a complex coordination process to make resources meet demand, since a demand into being to a ship arriving port with the cargo onboard. This research will look at how collaboration could make port allocation more efficient and flexible. The purpose is to come up with a new tool for collaborative work, which integrates with external data to support decision making. Important goals for this research will be to improve utilization of resources, and create a better flow of information. Game theory (hereafter GT) is a methodology of decision making involving multiple parties such as persons, companies or agents. As each port allocation in reality requires a different set of solutions it would make sense to define a port allocation as an Ad hoc activity. Collaboration must be inclusive, include all leadership and participants of the system to be legitimate. This is done by allowing them to add, subtract, and communicate around each port allocation in order to find converging solutions. It would be useful to add some data from third party information providers. This research answers some key questions concerning further development. One of the expected benefits of implementing such a system are far better information flow that hopefully will increase port's capabilities to overcome these problems. Other benefits may be the ability to benchmark activities in order to track changes in performance. The ability to run historical and prospective simulations could contribute to an increase in utilization, efficiency and understanding of the supply chain.