Port of Vancouver supply chain system

The Port of Vancouver is Canada's largest port, trading $43 billion in goods with more than 90 trading partners in 2004. The Port handles four major types of cargo namely dry bulk, liquid bulk, break bulk, and containerised cargo and is a homeport for the Alaska cruise business. The Vancouver Port Authority's traffic forecasts indicate that the container sector will be the key business driver for many years to come. To sustain and enhance its container market share, Port stakeholders continue to expand the physical capacity of terminal and inter-modal assets. However, expanding plant capacity without also streamlining and improving transactions and information flow between stakeholders will undermine asset utilization, operational excellence and customer service and hence, the Port's competitive position. The main objective of this paper is to identify areas where information technologies can be implemented to resolve processing problems between PoV stakeholders and thus enhance container throughput productivity.