A fully autonomous roboship? Really?

The fully autonomous merchant ship is making its cautious entrance; the trend of its adoption is increasing and the ship will be with us before too long. 

Technology is already here to support further development, including autonomous navigation systems (GPS, INS); advanced sensor technology (RADAR, AIS, LIDAR, IR camera, high-resolution sonar, wind, and pressure sensors); digital twins; intelligent maintenance; and monitoring and control systems automation. 

With the use of AI in the management of integrated big data platforms (shipping; ports; inland transportation), remaining challenges are being addressed too, including the establishment of advanced Remote Operation Centres (ROCs) in ports. 

However, similarly to the introduction of each and every new technology since the industrial revolution, like that of modern, fully automated, container terminals, the effects on sea-going labour are obvious. Resolving the ‘human challenge’ won’t be easy but nautical schools, academies and universities should already start developing their long-term plans for the ‘cyber-farer’ of the 'roboship'. HH

(open access: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0308-597X(24)00482-2)

(I thank my coauthors -see photo- for the excellent and most enjoyable cooperation)

A NEW ROLE OF DISTANCE IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE

 

In our new work, we enhance the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model (DSGE) by incorporating a distance shock parameter into the transaction costs function. We show that distance does not impede trade, as conventionally assumed in gravity-based trade models. Rather, we show that a country’s economic benefit from trade depends on the length of time its main macroeconomic variables (gross domestic product, consumption, capital accumulation, investment, real money balances, and inflation) react to a distance shock, likely caused by today’s global economic uncertainty: i.e., what Jeffry Sachs of Columbia University has called ‘man-made supply shocks’.

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Globalization, trade liberalization, information technologies and low transport costs have all shrunk distances leading us into the global ‘village’. Geographical distance has become largely irrelevant in trade models, replaced by economic distance as this is represented by the low transport costs of large ships. This, for instance, allows China to import iron ore from Brazil, three times the distance of its neighboring Australia.

Recently, this reality has started to change, together with the emergence of the term de-globalization. Global economic uncertainty (GEA), deriving from trade frictions, inflation, embargoes, wars, strikes, etc. --what Jeffry Sachs of Columbia University has called man-made supply shocks--, is shortening global supply chains, giving rise to nearshoring, friendshoring, 3D printing, etc.. Interestingly, GEA creates regional distribution hub-countries, if one were to just look at Chinese investments in Mexico (for USA) and Turkey (for Europe)[1].

What we show in our work is that GEA changes distance from a geographical constant to an economic ‘shock’ variable, with asymmetric effects. With the use of Iran as an example, we show that the country’s economic benefit is far greater by joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), despite the much longer distances from SCO countries, rather than the International North-South Trade Corridor (INSTC) of Russia. Again, the distance of economic interaction plays a less significant role in advancing economic welfare, depending on the reaction time to distance of main macroeconomic variables such as gross domestic product, consumption, capital accumulation, investment, real money balances, and inflation.

HH

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[1] China was given one billion euro to Turkey, to develop a production facility for its BYD electric car, thus bypassing EU’s recently established import duties on Chinese electric cars.

OR: Operational Research or Operations Research?

A silly question really but, one worth asking nonetheless: Which of the two expressions is correct? Operational Research or Operations Research?

Most people will tell you “it’s the same”. Those a little bit  more savvy, however, will say (correctly I admit) that the first (operational) is UK/European (we even have journals and societies under this name, e.g., European Journal of Operational Research), while the second (operations) is American.

These, however, do not answer my question: which one is correct? Or, to be more precise, which one describes better the content and scope of the OR discipline which is the application of advanced analytical methods, such as mathematical modeling, statistics, and optimization, to help make better decisions and solve complex problems? 

The root of the problem may be in the translation of the English 'operations research' into, say, French (recherche opérationnelle), Dutch (operationeel onderzoek), etc., and then translating these back to English as (operational research). 

Operational Research, however, implies research that is operational; i.e., research dealing with day-to-day operational questions. Operations Research, instead, is 'research on operations', which is exactly what OR is about, as I have defined it above.

I hope my ‘silly’ distinction might be found useful or convincing among colleagues and students, so  that the correct expression is used going forward. And this is “Operations Research”.  

HH

 

Stowage planning and Yang Ming’s ‘Mobility’ explosion in Ningbo (9 Aug ’24)

Stowage planning of a large containership is an art and a science, claiming the brightest of our students and the use  of the most advanced algorithms of operations research.

This may sound surprising unless one things that the stowage exercise involves something like five loading ports in Asia and an equal number of unloading (and loading) ports in Europe; the need to minimize rehandles taking the full rotation into account; considering ship bay allocations by alliance members; proper positioning of dangerous, reefer and oversized containers; loading the ship evenly in view of the small clearance between a large ship’s keel and the seabed at berth; to the extent possible, reducing the metacenter of the ship by stowing heavy containers as low as possible.

All this is done not only by taking the full rotation into account, but also the plans of the yard planners. These have similar problems to solve, trying to minimize both rehandles (a nightmare in ports like Hong Kong where one must store containers 7-high), as well as the movement of terminal equipment (cranes; chassis; straddle carriers; reach stackers; AGVs, etc.). Recently, minimization of equipment movements has one more objective to fulfill: environmental emissions.

Finally, the equation may need to include gate operations, regarding the arrival of export containers. Here, external tracks should interfere as little as possible with the movements of terminal equipment which, btw, should be available and ready to serve them: a synchronization issue. Thus, external tracks should wait as little as possible and be given priority if they must pick up an import container on their way out (known as ‘dual transaction’).

No matter how difficult, we often attempt the joint optimization of such problems, i.e. ship-terminal-gate. One can easily understand the complexity of the exercise, particularly if one considers that carrier and terminal operator do not always see eye to eye. HH