A reduction in equipment maintenance spend during the recession was perhaps inevitable. And while in most cases safety has, thankfully, not been compromised, life cycle costs will surge if the strategy is maintained long term.<\/p>\n
As a result of the cut backs, some outside contractors have been forced to find ways of reducing the cost of parts and spares they supply to their customers, although many operators still prefer to keep most equipment maintenance in house.<\/p>\n
H.\u00d6nder T\u00fcrker, sales manager of Turkish company Portunus Port Spares & Services, says that the recession has fundamentally changed the way many terminal operators are now thinking about equipment maintenance. Despite the fact that throughput has almost returned to 2008-2009 levels, the port world is no longer the same, he suggests.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, there is definitely an emphasis on cost saving and one of the first areas to have been affected is equipment maintenance,\u201d he says. \u201cUnfortunately, if operators cut back on maintenance spending, then they are seriously undermining safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is similarly convinced that cutting back on maintenance spending could also have longer term implications. Whenever Portunus is brought in to advise port managers on new equipment purchases, for example, the company emphasises that life cycle costs have to be taken into consideration, not just the initial capital cost of the equipment. Cutting back on maintenance costs on new pieces of machinery can therefore have a knock on effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy not replacing a filter when logic says you should this can later adversely affect the operation of a hydraulic pump, an engine or the transmission. Further down the line, that can have serious cost implications,\u201d says Mr T\u00fcrker.<\/p>\n
Portunus, one of whose main activities involves providing third party maintenance support to terminal operators, nevertheless has had to be able to adapt to the new reality. It has become an independent supplier of parts and components, having reached agreements with a number of manufacturers and OEMs. By not being tied to any one particular supplier, it has been able to act as an alternative provider of original spare parts and because of its cost base, it is often now able to do this more cheaply.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis strategy created opportunities for us in the crisis. We went to terminal operators from Chile to Yemen to discuss ways in which we could cut the cost of their spare parts. By the end of last year, we had worked with ports in 42 countries,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Portunus has now gone even further, having developed its \u201cShop In Work\u201d solution, which effectively makes available to the port all the spare parts it forecasts it will need over the coming year without the need for any upfront payment to be made. The inventory, which is kept at the port, is nevertheless owned and maintained by Portunus, with payment made only when the operator requires a particular part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis approach ensures that operational safety at the port is maintained without the need to make any upfront financial investment cost, whilst leaving decisions on spare parts in the hands of terminal managers,\u201d explains Mr T\u00fcrker.<\/p>\n
When Port Strategy<\/em> asked DP World whether it had cut back spending on maintenance, it issued the following statement: \u201cIn line with its commitment to efficient operations, health and safety, DP World has policies in place to ensure that maintenance efforts are not compromised under any circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n When pressed to say if a uniform policy towards maintenance had been put in place during the downturn, a spokesperson re-iterated that, with health, safety and efficiency being at the forefront of its business, the company has policies in place to ensure that maintenance is in line with all requirements of its business activities, whether in the downturn or not.<\/p>\n Asked about the dangers of cutting back on routine maintenance, it pointed out that, to ensure safe, secure and sustainable operations across the whole supply chain, the levels of maintenance applied simply must be in line with overall business activities.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a company that does cut back on maintenance, it may not suffer a short-term productivity reduction. However, it is a case of not if<\/em> this decline starts to manifest itself, but when<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of how DP World undertakes maintenance, the company says it deploys maintenance teams across all its operations; however, occasionally, if the need arises, it does also use third party contractors. Significantly, it is not likely to bring in other companies to necessarily look after specific pieces of equipment across the whole group, rather, different regions tend to dictate what type of outsourcing takes place.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is very much a variation in price and quality offerings among third party providers,\u201d comments the company. \u201cOur policy is to cater to our customers\u2019 needs in the safest and most efficient manner that also meets the needs of our people and business units.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, asked whether equipment manufacturers provide the most cost-effective third party maintenance services or whether independents are a better choice, the spokesperson noted that, in DP World’s experience, the various equipment manufacturers have different policies. Some are not interested in undertaking operational maintenance, while others are.<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, both maintenance services options are available where a varied equipment fleet is involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Israel, container throughput has held up. However, the way maintenance is carried out may well be threatened by other factors. Government policy, for example, is to eventually transfer control of all national ports to the private sector. However, Yossi Bassan, Ashdod’s vice president Logistics & Engineering, says that this should not have a major impact on the way that a port carries out equipment maintenance.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens to maintenance under a privatised structure would depend on many factors, including the type of contract that existed between the operator and the port unions. However, it’s very difficult to make major savings in areas such as routine maintenance provision, because if you don’t do this correctly, the machinery stops running. There’s always a minimum spend that you have to make in this area,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n At present, Ashdod retains all routine maintenance in house, using graduate mechanical and electrical engineers recruited from local technical schools who are then given specialist training by the port. They study the various pieces of equipment operated and in many cases are sent to the original manufacturer for additional training.<\/p>\n \u201cAt one stage, we did seriously look at outsourcing routine maintenance. But the problem is that we need the maintenance staff in the port to cover three shifts a day and outsourcing that work could not be undertaken economically by outside contractors,\u201d says Mr Bassan. \u201cHowever, from time to time, we do go back and check the market. But for the time being, it does make sense to do routine maintenance using our own people.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Mr Bassan concedes that this dedicated team simply cannot do everything and Ashdod Port does have to look to third party providers for more specialist maintenance provision. He quotes crane electronics as one example and major mechanical problems as another. In addition, outside contractors are brought in to undertake major repairs and are also seen as the only option when comprehensive refurbishment work is required.<\/p>\n \u201cIn these cases, we invariably go to the supplier or to one of its sub-contractors to get the job done, because we don’t want our own people to be tied up for a month working on one crane and therefore not be available to undertake daily routine maintenance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alex Hughes asks whether cutting equipment maintenance spending is a sensible measure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-8161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-container-cargo-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8161"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=8161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}