Automation messes up the flow of illegal drugs. The big stuff does not come in a backpack but in container ships/trucks.
In LATAM, dock workers make sure this goes undetected. I know of an IE who was championing a dock worker scheduling optimization algo, typical Operations Management stuff. Dude was killed.
I'd like to think that this kind of things do not happen here. But every time I've thought along those lines, I've been mistaken. It's just happens at a different scale.
The metric used in this article is likely different than the metric that the port operators care about. The article was measuring productivity by turnaround time for ships. The port operator probably cares most about operating costs. Excess turnaround time for ships is a cost born by the shipping line (and consumer), and it is unlikely to affect whether people choose a given port because geographic concerns dominate most.
The goal of the port operator is explicitly to lay off longshoremen so they don't have to pay inflated salaries. It is diametrically opposed to the union's goals in this regard, hence the dispute. The article largely acknowledge that automation succeeds in reducing the number of longshoremen required, which is its actual purpose. (It did question whether the reduced labor costs actually pay for the capital investment required, but didn't give any numbers. Since capital investment is a one-time cost but wages are a recurring cost, this calculation needs to be subjected to discounted cash flow analysis, which also requires that an interest rate be specified.)
The article notes that many automated ports are poor performers productivity-wise and presents this as evidence that automation doesn't increase productivity. However, it stands to reason that ports already suffering from low productivity would be the most inclined to adopt automation. I think it's safe to say automation is not a silver bullet that will cause a port to jump from the bottom to the top of the rankings, but that doesn't mean these ports wouldn't be worse off without the improvements they've made.
Also while the article champions various process improvements to make ports more efficient that don't strictly require automation, it's not an either/or scenario. Implementing automation can make it easier to implement process improvements like scheduling, and process improvements which reduce variability make automation less expensive and more capable. It makes sense to pursue both in parallel.
It seems to me that comparing Chinese ports to American ports is comparing very different things: I would imagine that the vast majority of the traffic at a Chinese port is export traffic while at an American port it’s import traffic.¹ Furthermore, thanks to centralized decision making, the interface between surface traffic and ship in China will inherently be more efficient than the same interface in the U.S. What I’m wondering is how do U.S. ports compare to, say, Europe or Canada where the situation would be more comparable.
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1. In fact, it occurs to me that loading the ship should be faster/more efficient than unloading as there’s not necessarily any reason to do any sorting beyond which ship a container goes on at the export point, while at the import point, there needs to be more direction of getting containers onto individual trucks and trains.
zubiaur ·74 days ago
In LATAM, dock workers make sure this goes undetected. I know of an IE who was championing a dock worker scheduling optimization algo, typical Operations Management stuff. Dude was killed.
I'd like to think that this kind of things do not happen here. But every time I've thought along those lines, I've been mistaken. It's just happens at a different scale.
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nostrademons ·74 days ago
The goal of the port operator is explicitly to lay off longshoremen so they don't have to pay inflated salaries. It is diametrically opposed to the union's goals in this regard, hence the dispute. The article largely acknowledge that automation succeeds in reducing the number of longshoremen required, which is its actual purpose. (It did question whether the reduced labor costs actually pay for the capital investment required, but didn't give any numbers. Since capital investment is a one-time cost but wages are a recurring cost, this calculation needs to be subjected to discounted cash flow analysis, which also requires that an interest rate be specified.)
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jjk166 ·74 days ago
Also while the article champions various process improvements to make ports more efficient that don't strictly require automation, it's not an either/or scenario. Implementing automation can make it easier to implement process improvements like scheduling, and process improvements which reduce variability make automation less expensive and more capable. It makes sense to pursue both in parallel.
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JumpCrisscross ·74 days ago
1. Repealing the Foreign Dredge Act [1] (or amending it to be compatible with friendshoring);
2. Mandating truck appointment systems (maybe even a centrally-run one, at least for each coast); and
3. Moving to a 24/7 default for our nation’s ports.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Dredge_Act_of_1906
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dhosek ·74 days ago
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1. In fact, it occurs to me that loading the ship should be faster/more efficient than unloading as there’s not necessarily any reason to do any sorting beyond which ship a container goes on at the export point, while at the import point, there needs to be more direction of getting containers onto individual trucks and trains.
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