The Logistician - Vol 41

Friday, 3rd January, 2003

The official newsletter of the Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society.
http://www.lscms.org

The President, Executive Committee, Advisory Board and Staff of the Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society would like to wish all members and friends a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

- The Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society nominated for award
- Maersk MD criticizes HK exporters over 24hr rule
- Sydney Ports Corporation wins Port of the Year 2002
- Hong Kong port's container throughput up to record high
- New ALA Training Location in Singapore  

The Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society nominated for award

L&SCMS has been nominated "Best Education Provider in Asia" for The Asian Freight & Supply Chain Awards (AFSCA) by Cargonews Asia.

Readers of the publication may cast their votes between December 9 and January 13, 2003, electronically or through voting ballots.

The Society would like to assure its members that it will continue to strive towards enhancing service quality, innovation, customer relations and reliability - which are key attributes of its nomination.

"2003 is an important year for us with many events and activities planned and we are extremely proud to welcome two additions to our Advisory Board who bring with them considerable knowledge and expertise in their respective areas of practice within Logistics & Supply Chain Management. Mr. David Cuthill - General Manager, International Trade & Transportation Solutions of ASX listed - Powerlan Limited and Mr. V C S Vardan - a Consultant and Trainer with more than 20 years experience in training and consulting in Transport and Logistics. With their input we are confident that we can continue to assist in the growth and development of the industry" said Mr. Danny Lim the Hon. Secretary of the Society.

Maersk MD criticizes HK exporters over 24hr rule

THE head of Maersk's Hong Kong unit has hit out at local shippers over their sloppy manifests and said their failure to change their ways in the run up to the full imposition of US Customs' 24-hour rule could have an adverse effect on the SAR's economy.

Claus Hemmingsen, managing director of Maersk Hong Kong Ltd, said he believes that failure to comply with the new regulations, which require shippers to send electronic manifests with 14 points of information including far more detailed description of US-bound cargo than previously required, could also result in disaster for the Hong Kong shipping industry.

"The number of amendments of the cargo details after vessel departure has exploded, and there is a significant risk that cargo will not reach the shores of the US after February 2 if the malpractice is not stopped immediately," Mr Hemmingsen said.

"We are only six weeks away from the expiry of the grace period and a lot is to be desired in terms of shippers' adherence to procedures. A snapshot of week 50 indicates that only 43 per cent of the containers loaded had sufficient information to forward to the US Customs out of which more than 80 per cent required revisions after vessel departure.

"...had this been week six of 2003, only 10 per cent of the North America shipments would have loaded from Hong Kong. This could potentially be a disaster for shippers, importers and shipping line/logistics companies as most of the shipments would inevitably by delayed. Extra storage cost will then be incurred, and importers would not get their cargo on time," said Mr Hemmingsen.

The executive added significant penalties for amendments might be needed to help ensure that the quality of data companies like his received from shippers was up to minimum standard.

"Shippers seem very reluctant to change their old habits of picking up the containers in the last minute," Mr Hemmingsen said, "and are also not volunteering the accurate cargo details until after vessels have sailed.

"The risk of serious rejection of cargo in Hong Kong is real and if customers are not using the 60 days grace period to comply, we could have a very dramatic situation in February," said Mr Hemmingsen.

Sydney Ports Corporation wins Port of the Year 2002

SYDNEY Ports Corporation has won the Lloyd's List DCN Australian Port of the Year 2002 Award.

Greg Martin, chief executive officer, Sydney Ports Corp said: "This year the Port of the Year Award recognised excellence in the management of the road and rail interface, that is, the movement of cargo in and out of ports via their roads and rail connections. Many consider this to be one of the most important challenges facing the industry as a whole."

The submission which won Sydney Ports the award was based upon the regeneration of Glebe Island and White Bay and rail initiatives for Port Botany.

"The projects were born out of Sydney Ports' commitment to improve inland transport systems with emphasis on the use of rail transport to further develop and streamline the logistics chain and improve the current infrastructure serving its ports.

"It is a great honour to receive accolades for work achieved from important objectives such as improving port efficiency and enhancing port access. With trade expected to double by 2020, Sydney Ports is constantly looking at ways to further progress these objectives," said Mr Martin.

Sydney Ports will finish the year achieving record levels of trade in September and October and crane rates by stevedores, which are the highest in the country. Sydney's crane rate performance has risen to an average of 27.4 and a net ship rate of 46.1 moves per hour. Container movements have more than doubled from a few years ago, Mr Martin told the audience.

"The Glebe Island and White Bay redevelopment included AUS$13 million (US$7.31 million) improvements at the facility with a further $13 million scheduled to be spent over the coming

Hong Kong port's container throughput up to record high

Container throughput in Hong Kong is forecast at 18.6 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) for 2002, an increase of 4.6 percent over 2001. (12/13/2002)

The forecast throughput volume, will make Hong Kong the world's busiest container port in 2002, the 10th time over the last 11 years since 1992.

"The projection is based on the provisional throughput of Kwai Chung container terminals for the first 11 months and the port's overall performance for the first nine months,"

"The Kwai Chung container terminals recorded a cumulative throughput of 10.8 million TEUs from January to November, up 4.7 percent over the same period in 2001. In November, the Kwai Chung container terminals' throughput surged 16.6 percent year-on-year to 1.03 million TEUs," the spokesman said.

In the first nine months, the Hong Kong port's overall performance saw a year-on-year growth of 4.9 percent, amounting to14.1 million TEUs in throughput. The volume handled in the month of September by the Hong Kong port continued to go up by 12.7 percent to 1.8 million TEUs.

"The growth momentum in the container throughput in the past few months is expected to continue in the fourth quarter of the year, leading to the 18.6 million TEUs projection for the port of Hong Kong in 2002," the spokesman added.

New ALA Training Location in Singapore

Through it's ATP in Singapore the Logistics & Supply Chain Management Society, ALA Certificate and Diploma programmes will also be offered through Computor Lord Industrial Training Centre.

Established more than 20 years ago, Computor Lord is an authorised Tradenet vendor, the only Tradenet training provider in Singapore, and has, over the years, trained more than 4,000 transport and Logistics professionals.

"We see many synergies between the Society and Computor Lord and it is a positive step towards us ensuring that our competency based training programmes are available in a number of sites in Singapore thus ensuring that high quality Logistics training is available to everyone at convenient venues," said Mr. Shondell Lim at the signing ceremony that was held in December last year.

L&SCMS, with the Australian Logistics Academy, launched the region's first Competency Based Training programmes for individuals in Q3 of last year. It is targeted at those who wish to gain employment in the diverse field of Logistics or for those currently employed who wish to attain a minimum standard of competency. For more information on these and any of the Society's activities please e-mail elee@lscms.org

ALA Intake in Malaysia

The next intake for the Australian Logistics Academy Diploma and Advanced Diploma programmes offered by distance learning in Malaysia commences on the 18th of January. For enrolment and course details log on to http://www.logistics4u.info or contact Mr. Harcharan of Brickfields at 03-2274-4165.

Join the hundreds of students throughout the world who have benefited from this course and enroll in the only programme in the world that includes actual hands-on Logistics software and systems training used by leading Logistics companies