Title
A customer relationship management tool for sea-freight
forwarders
Advisor(s)
Wong, TN
Author(s)
Chow, Pui-shing.;
周沛誠
.
Citation
Issued Date
2004
URL
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/30236
Table Of Contents
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Table of Contents
iii-v
List of Figures
vi-vii
List of Tables
viii
Chapter 1
Introduction
1
1.1 Previous Research & Research Gaps 3
1.2 Objective 5
1.3 Outline Of The Thesis 6
Chapter 2
Literature Review
7
2.1 Introduction 7
2.2 Evolution Of Logistics Activities 7 2.3 Scenario Of Hong Kong Freight Transportation Industry 11
2.3.1 Hong Kong Freight Forwarding Environment 11 2.3.2 Competitiveness Of Hong Kong Freight Forwarding Industry 13
2.4 Transportation Logistics 16
2.4.1 Transportation Mode 16
2.4.2 Freight Transportation Literature 19 2.5 Customer Relationship Management In Freight Industry 21
2.6 Cargo Consolidation 24
2.7 Information Systems In Sea-freight Industry 29 2.7.1 IT Applications In Shipping Industry 29 2.7.2 E-Commerce & Information Exchange 32 2.7.3 Current Shipping Information Systems In Hong Kong 34
2.8 Conclusion 39
Chapter 3
General Overview Of The CRM Tool
40
3.1 Introduction 40
3.2 Operations In The Current Shipping Logistics Chain 40 3.3 General Overview Of The CRM Tool 46
3.4 Main Modules Of The CRM Tool 51
3.4.1 E-Booking System 51
3.4.1.1 Shipment Booking 51
3.4.1.3 Cargo Exchange Market 53 3.4.2 Container Selection & Cargo Allocation Decision Support System 54
3.4.3 Information Exchange 55
3.5 Conclusion 58
Chapter 4
Container Selection & Cargo Allocation
Decision Support System
59
4.1 Introduction 59
4.2 Existing Practice & Problem Description Of Cargo Consolidation 60
4.3 Problem Formulation 67
4.3.1 General Model 67
4.3.2 Heuristic Approach 78
4.3.3 Assumptions 85
4.4 Model Validation & Discussion 86
4.4.1 Example 1 86
4.4.1.1 Example Testing 86
4.4.1.2 Discussion Of The Result In Example 1 92
4.4.2 Example 2 94
4.4.2.1 Example Testing 94
4.4.2.2 Discussion Of The Result In Example 2 97
4.5 Conclusion 99
Chapter 5
E-Booking System
100
5.1 Introduction 100
5.2 Description Of The E-Booking System 100
5.2.1 Shipment Booking System 102
5.2.2 Shipment Handling System 110 5.2.3 Electronic Cargo Exchange Market 118
5.3 Conclusion 122
Chapter 6
Information Exchange
123
6.1 Introduction 123
6.2 Existing Practice and Problem Description 123 6.2.1 Benefits Of Using XML Over EDI As Data Exchange Standard Format 124 6.2.2 Limitations Of Using XML As Data Exchange Standard Format 128 6.2.3 Conversion Of XML Data Into HTML Code 131 6.2.4 Role Of XML In The Freight Logistics Industry 133 6.3 Information Exchange In The CRM Tool 135
6.3.1 Overview Of The Information Exchange Among Parties 135 6.3.2 Information Exchange In The Cargo Exchange Market 138 6.3.3 Information Exchange Between Forwarders & Shipping Carriers 140 6.3.4 Information Exchange Between Local Freight Forwarders &
Oversea Freight Forwarding Agents 144
6.4 Conclusion 148
Chapter 7
System Implementation
149
7.1 Introduction 149
7.2 Implementation Of The CRM Tool 149
7.2.1 Java Technology 150
7.2.2 Java 2 Enterprise Edition Platform & .NET Platform 152
7.2.3 RMI-JDBC-ODBC Bridge 153
7.2.3.1 Setup Of The ODBC Data-source 155 7.2.3.2 Architecture & Installation Of The RmiJdbc Package 155 7.2.4 XML-Based Documents & Database 159 7.2.4.1 Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 159 7.2.4.2 Read XML Content & Store Data To Database 160 7.2.4.3 Read XML Content & Store Data To Database 161
7.3 Conclusion 163
Chapter 8
Conclusion & Future Work
164
8.1 Problem Description 165
8.2 Contribution Of The Study 167
8.3 Recommendation For Future Work 169
References
171
List Of Figures
Figure Number Description
Page
Figure 2.1 Hong Kong Port Container Throughput (in million TEU) vs Year 12 Figure 3.1 General workflow in the Hong Kong sea-freight forwarding industry 44 Figure 3.2 Information flow in the shipping logistics chain 45 Figure 3.3 General overview of the systems in the shipping industry 48 Figure 3.4 System architecture of the CRM tool 49 Figure 3.5 Use case diagram of the e-booking system 53 Figure 3.6 Use case diagram of the container selection & cargo allocation decision support
system
55 Figure 3.7 Use Case diagram of the information exchange module 57 Figure 4.1 Illustration on cargo orientation and relative position 73 Figure 4.2 A flow chart presenting the logic of the heuristic 84 Figure 5.1 Login interface of the CRM tool 101 Figure 5.2 Operation procedure in the shipment booking system 102 Figure 5.3a Visual screen layout of the shipping order form in the shipping ordering stage 105 Figure 5.3b Visual screen layout of the shipping order form in the route selection stage 106 Figure 5.3c Visual screen layout of the example of route selection 107 Figure 5.4 Visual screen layout of the shipping order form in the shipping detailing stage 108 Figure 5.5 Visual screen layout of the shipping order form in the cargo commodity
declaration stage
109 Figure 5.6 Operation procedure of the shipment handling system 113 Figure 5.7 Visual screen layout of the shipment handling system in Stage 1 and 7 114 Figure 5.8 Visual screen layout of the shipment handling system in Stage 4 115 Figure 5.9 Visual screen layout of the shipment handling system in Stage 6a 116 Figure 5.10 Visual screen layout of the shipment handling system in Stage 6b 117 Figure 5.11 Operation procedure of the electronic cargo exchange market 118 Figure 5.12 Visual screen layout of the electronic cargo exchange market 121 Figure 6.1a Sample shipping order (Main Part) 126 Figure 6.1b Sample shipping order (Attached List) 127 Figure 6.2a Visual screen layout of the XML code of the sample shipping order
(Main Part)
127 Figure 6.2b Visual screen layout of the XML code of the sample shipping order
(Attached List)
128 Figure 6.3 Logic flow of associating the XML document with XSL document 133 Figure 6.4 Communication between two parties in the logistics chain 137 Figure 6.5 Visual screen layout of the shipping order generation tool 139 Figure 6.6 Visual screen layout of the XML-based shipping schedules 141 Figure 6.7 Visual screen layout of the web page for reading shipping schedule 142 Figure 6.8 Visual screen layout of the web page for generating XML-based container order 143 Figure 6.9 Visual screen layout of the web page for generating XML-based bill of lading 145 Figure 6.10 Visual screen layout of the XML-based House bill of lading 146 Figure 6.11 Visual screen layout of the web page for generating XML-based pre-alert 147
Figure 7.1 Edition on java.policy file 152
Figure 7.2 Setup of the ODBC data-source 155
Figure 7.3 Architecture of the RmiJdbc package 156 Figure 7.4 Example code of the Java program demonstrates the use of
RMI-JDBC-ODBC Bridge
158 Figure 7.5 Visual screen layout of the command to start the RmiJdbc server 158 Figure 7.6 The effect of SAX and DOM in the application development 159 Figure 7.7 Example code of the Java program demonstrates the use of ‘DocumentBuilder’ 161 Figure 7.8 Example code of the Java program demonstrates the use of 161
‘getElementsByTagName()’
Figure 7.9 Example code of the Java program demonstrates the use of SQL statement and ‘ResultSet’ object
162 Figure 7.10 Example code of the Java program for storing data to the ‘Document ’ object 162
List Of Tables
Table Number Description
Page
Table 2.1 The breakdown number of the employees in the Hong Kong transportation logistics industry
11 Table 2.2 A comparison of THC from different ports 14 Table 4.1a 20’ Steel Container Specification from the Hong Kong maritime major players 62 Table 4.1b 40’ Steel Container Specification from the Hong Kong maritime major players 63 Table 4.1c 40’ Aluminum Container Specification from the Hong Kong maritime major
players
63 Table 4.1d 40’ High -Cube Steel Container Specification from the Hong Kong maritime
major players
63 Table 4.1e 45’ High -Cube Steel Container Specification from the Hong Kong maritime
major players
64 Table 4.1f 45’ High-Cube Aluminum Container Specification from the Hong Kong
maritime major players
64 Table 4.2 Cargo item orientation definition 71 Table 4.3 Container Specification & Ocean Freight Charge in the Example 1 87 Table 4.4 Cargo Item Specification and Load-Type in the Example 1 88 Table 4.5 Local Haulage Charges & Terminal Handling Charges of Cargo Container 89 Table 4.6 Computational Test Result of the Container Selection Plan, Cargo Allocation
Plan and Cargo Loading Plan (Example 1)
90 Table 4.7 Computational Test Result of the optimal Container Selection Plan, Cargo
Allocation Plan and Cargo Loading Plan (Example 1)
92
Table 4.8 Cargo Item Specification and Load-Type in the Example 2 95
Table 4.9
Container Specification & Ocean Freight Charge in the Example 2
96 Table 4.10 Computational Test Result of the Container Selection Plan, Cargo AllocationPlan and Cargo Loading Plan (Example 2)
96 Table 4.11 Comparison of the computational test results between Chen et al.’s model and the
proposed model
98 Table 6.1 Library of data definition to be used in the XML-based shipping order 129 -130