Wind powered cargo vessels

As a sailing enthusiast I came to know of ‘Hydroptere’, the fastest sailing trimaran of the world, from France. The boat has marine wings, the foils, which are placed under each of the floats of the trimaran. Once the boat reaches 10 knots, these immersed “wings”, deployed at 45 degrees in the water, generate an upward thrust. With the appropriate angle of the foil, it raises the boat like the wing of a plane. Then the hull and the floats of Hydroptere fly five meters above the sea surface and can reach speeds of 83 km/h. Can we use wind power “again” for cargo vessels for a more sustainable shipping industry?

By about 3400 BC, the first sailing ships were used on the River Nile in Egypt. The hulls of the earliest ships were made of papyrus reeds bundled together. Later, wood from acacia or sycamore trees was used. They had a single mast with a square sail, which was used in addition to oars when the wind was blowing in a favourable direction. The Age of Sail was the period in which sailing ships dominated trade routes and warfare at sea, which lasted from the 16th to the mid-19th century. Sailing vessels reached their peak in speed and efficiency during the second half of the 19th century, at which point steam-powered vessels started to dominate the seas. Today, cargo vessels are using mainly diesel engines.

According to a ‘high seas, high stakes’ project from the University of Manchester, shipping accounts for around 3% of global CO2 emissions. The sharing of information along the supply chain coupled with weather routing services and dedicated berthing has supported slow steaming in becoming the norm, included within ‘slow steaming clauses’ in time and voyage charters. By 2050 container vessels travel at 40% of the speed of current ships, while other ships are 20% slower. The slower ships go, the easier it is for renewable powered ships to compete!

Although there have been applications of solar technology with catamarans and use of kites (like SkySails) with cargo vessels to reduce fuel costs, the coming 20-30 years will see an introduction of a new generation of cargo vessels that are wind powered.

There have been some designs for wind powered cargo vessels. Inspired by the aerospace and sailing industry, the Norwegian designer Lade AS developed Vindskip to utilize wind for propulsion. Vindskip is a hybrid merchant vessel for sustainable sea transport, driven by the wind and LNG. This vessel with has a hull shaped like a symmetrical air foil going in the relative wind, will generate an aerodynamic lift giving a pull in the ships direction, within an angular sector of the course. With an LNG propulsion system in addition, starting the ship from zero up to the desired speed, the aerodynamic lift now generated can be exploited to generate pull and saving fuel up to 60% and reducing emission up to 80%.

The Ecoliner, a Dutch initiative, was initiated by Fairtransport BV, Dykstra Naval Architects and developed further by the Trans-European partnership SAIL. Ecoliner, a 138 m long sailing cargo vessel, is a hybrid shipping concept equipped with high-tech sails and a powerful engine. The vessel can be used as bulk carrier, container or multi-purpose vessel. Ecoliner is an initiative with the goal to provide the missing link in sustainable sea transport by developing a multipurpose, hybrid cargo vessel which can sail a transatlantic route.

As the costs of fossil fuel are expected to increase and big brand owners become more aware of sustainability and environmental ranking of vessels, there is an evident market for clean shipping.

Purchasing, more a science than an art

There is a difference between buying and purchasing. People often think that purchasing is the same as buying that we do every day, such as buying a newspaper, food and new clothes. Purchasing is professional buying by an organisation. Purchasing is structured, based on facts, and shaped by corporate policy. Buying in the private domain has space for irrational considerations, whereas in the professional domain this space is not present. In purchasing we recognise the purchase, the purchasing function, and the purchaser/purchasing department.

The purchase involves everything you receive an external invoice for. This can be goods (materials, office supplies), services (temporary labour, pest management), and works (for the factory, office). Purchasing is therefore known as a supporting business activity for an organisation. As organisations have been outsourcing more business activities that were previously undertaken by the company itself, the financial importance of purchasing has significantly increased over the past 30 years. Today purchasing as percentage of revenue is 20-30% for service industry; 50-70% for manufacturing; and 60-90% in trade. An organisation can leave purchasing solely to the purchasing department or leave parts of this responsibility to other departments as well. This person in the other department is not called a purchaser, but purchasing is then just part of his responsibilities. Purchasing is not only relevant for companies but also very important for the public sector (government departments, hospitals, schools, etc.).

The purchasing function has a strategic, tactical and operational dimension. The purchasing strategy is deducted from the corporate strategy. The purchasing strategy is addressing the role of purchasing in the organisation, a purchasing policy and how the purchasing function is organised. A commodity strategy is a central component of a purchasing strategy, where according to Peter Kraljic for each purchasing group a strategy is formulated based on an analysis of the supply risk and strategic importance of a purchasing group (also know as a purchasing portfolio analysis). The result of the commodity strategy is the foundation for supplier relationship management. Tactical purchasing is also referred to supplier relationship management. Tactical purchasing involves the specification of the purchase, supplier selection and contracting of the supplier. The purchasing department normally leads these activities, although supplier selection is conducted in direct consultation with the internal users. Specification of the purchase is known to have the highest impact on the integral costs. Finally, operational purchasing involves the actual ordering of the purchase based on the contract, monitoring of the purchase and the after care. Operational purchasing is often delegated to the actual users.

The purchasing organisation has evolved over the years from basic transactional purchasing (decentralised, with a focus on processing orders and chasing suppliers), cost-drive purchasing (centralised, with a focus on minimising costs), integrated purchasing (cross-functional teams, integrating and aligning strategies and processes with stakeholders across the supply chain), towards value driven purchasing (cooperative purchasing, transforming towards a sustainable value system through horizontal collaboration).

Today modern purchasing is data oriented, involved in obtaining intelligence on the purchase market as well as recurring analysis of own spending. Analytical tools and purchasing models support decision making for the strategic and tactical purchasing function, whereas automation can help in better controlling and simplifying the operational purchasing function. However, still many people working in purchasing regard purchasing more an art, celebrating their (often price oriented) negotiation skills. I would like to argue differently. The building blocks of modern purchasing in your organisation should be based on facts and proper analysis instead. For this reason purchasing is more a science than an art!

Vision of Logistics: Logistics 3.0

To the next generation of logisticians, who will enhance the social and environmental contribution of the logistics discipline. Logistics is a fast moving industry and has been adapting over the last 50 years from army logistics, to basic trucking and warehousing to where it is today. Logistics has evolved from an efficiency-focus (Logistics 1.0), to a customer focus (Logistics 2.0) over the past decade, and is now moving towards a new value-driven era (Logistics 3.0).

The Vision of Logistics (Logistics 3.0) sets out the entire path towards excellence for your own logistics operations (also known as the internal supply chain), your (entire) supply chain and the environment. Logistics shall contribute to the three aspects in parallel. In doing so, they shall maintain continuous balance and alignment within and among all elements. It is the path to find logistics excellence and profit, and to eventually evolve your business to the next level.

The Logistics 3.0 laws:

1. The supply chain and environment are integral parts of the logistics system.
2. The focus on logistics excellence and profit starts with cleanliness. Such practices include daily cleaning of toilets, warehouse floors, trucks, picking up dirt anywhere you see it and throwing it in the dustbin. Personal hygiene is a critical part of cleanliness, therefore people should for example practice washing their hands when they start work and after visiting the toilet.
3. Waste: less is more! Reduction of waste in our operations and our supply chain is an important theme. We need to consider the building (green building design), people we employ (green culture), and the things we bring in the building (less inventory).
4. With high level of automation, heavy equipment and temperature control in logistics (air conditioning, chilled, frozen), logistics companies today require high amounts of energy. Energy management starts with an energy audit of your energy use: warehouse, transport, offices, etc. Instead of relying your business solely on non-renewable energy sources, such as oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy, use the God-given energy from the sun and wind. Especially in Malaysia, warehouse roofs and cool trucks shall be covered with solar panels!
5. Water is a primary need of humans and the unprecedented precious resource mankind have on earth. Care for water starts with water management at your facilities, such as catching rainwater, reuse of water at your facilities, and water treatment before returning it back to nature.
6. From push to pull; The market requirements (customer values such as: halal, quality, food safety) are addressed throughout the supply chain. The supply chain is to a large extent pulled by the customer order, made possible by sharing point-of-sales (POS) data from the retailer with its supply chain partners.
7. Quality focus, to strive for perfection in all components, of the business, supply chain and towards the environment. A culture should be developed of continuous improvements, where both internal and external audits will be required to ensure sufficient progress.
8. Companies should embrace a culture of continuous learning, which should be supported by continuous training of staff but also through involvement in research projects (with your local university) and participate in industry/supply chain-wide (innovation) initiatives.

Are you ready to move to the new era of logistics: Logistics 3.0?