Supply chain management in the dry bulk shipping industry

This paper is intended to show the importance of supply chain management in the dry-bulk shipping industry. A hypothetical company, the Texas Grain and Bakery Corporation, was created. The values and calculations used are artificial but representative of the industry. A well defined fleet analysis of Texas Intercoastal Transport's vessels and supply chain infrastructure show that an increase in productivity and profitability are possible with proper implementation. A systems approach of tying together the subsidiaries of Texas Grain and Bakery is used. This analysis is broken into seven sections: (1) Overview of the Systems Approach, which breaks down the seven step process. (2) Establishing a Baseline, which shows an annualized view of cargo movement of the core trade based on the first half of 2005. (3) Analysis of "Ideal" Allocation of Current Fleet, which defines assumptions used in the model and proposes a core trade fleet. (4) Analysis of Intermediate Fleet Allocation, which is a fleet analysis executable within the next 18 months.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Nicholson, Bryan E. (Bryan Edward)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Henry S. Marcus.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36274

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36274