TO PERUSE AND ANALYZE THE MAJOR OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF CONTAINER TERMINAL ALONGWITH ITS MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

Abstract

Study of container terminal industry and its management is the great challenges for the management now days. This covers the major field of the growth of containerization i.e. transporting goods in a container. In Pakistan Karachi is the main city where we have ports and these activities are frequently in process. In this research I have tried to cover those areas which critically creates problem in the transportation from sea especially in Pakistan. Such as container terminals are reaching their capacity limits and increasingly leading to traffic and port congestion. Container terminal managers have several, often conflicting goals, such as serve a container ship as fast as possible while minimizing terminal equipment costs. The development of new container ships of large capacities, modem technologies, and the introduction of container port automatic appliances at port terminals through their specialization are considered to be the basic features of modem container transport trends. In the present scenario the most important problem is to maintain the balance between the service provider and the owners. Since both the party i.e. the container ships and the container terminal facilities are very expensive, it is desirable to utilize them. And the utilization is only possible by having a strong Internal Operations Management System. In this research at initial stage some explanation and history about the containers and the terminals was explained and then further some internal operational activities and challenges problems highlighted, the research is totally related with the practical activities on the container terminal as I was quite difficult to obtained questionnaire filled from the stake holders of terminal, however, I tried my best to have meetings and informal interviews to obtain information related to my topic with open ended questions and some closed ended questions as included. Container terminals are now very important part of the international trade through sea, and almost every sector of business is dependent on container terminals, terminals are also now playing vital roles in the economy of the maritime states. Therefore, to manage the terminal to meet the required standards operational activities of the terminal are to be planned and organized in the way that customer to be satisfied with minimum time duration and efficient use of the resources to increase the productivity of the terminal. For the purpose in this research internal operational activities are highlighted because at present without investing more capital terminals can only improve the performance by paying attention on their internal operational activities. Therefore, in my research I highlighted the main internal operations that are challenging for the terminal operators to improve the performance and productivity.