Increasing port operational efficiency through operational reliability analysis

Abstract

In order to meet the developing technology and increasing supply demand, the search for faster and safer transportation modules has begun. Maritime transportation, which allows the transportation of high tonnage loads, has been adopted, and Ro-Ro transportation, one of the transportation methods where speed is at the forefront, has gained great importance. In this study conducted on Ro-Ro transportation, where speed is at the forefront, operational activities disrupted due to delays were examined. For this purpose, delay data was collected, analyzed and improvement suggestions were made using qualitative methods. An actively operating Ro-Ro port was selected to collect data and the study was limited to this port only. These data were obtained by examining the reasons for the delay in the ship's planned departure and arrival times for 2 years. The collected data were divided into categories and delay code names were given. The most common delay codes were selected according to their frequency of occurrence. The examined delay codes were reduced to 18 delay codes. Reliability analysis was used to evaluate the consistency of the time frequency of occurrence of these delay codes. Different distribution methods were evaluated using the Minitab program. The Weibull distribution was found to be the most suitable distribution and the Weibull distribution was chosen for the calculations. Reliability function calculation was made in the Weibull distribution, and a graphical visualization of the reliability rate of the obtained data was made. It has been concluded that the right action must be taken at the right time to improve delays, otherwise the reliability of the system will decrease, and each delay will trigger each other. Based on the results obtained, improvement suggestions were made, and recommendations were made to reduce and/or completely eliminate these delays. This study was conducted to fill the gap in the literature.