Maritime transportation plays a significant role in global economies. Seaports as primal nodes in maritime supply chain are also indispensable in ensuring efficient and effective global trading. On the other hand, seaport inefficiencies have profound influences on the overall performance which can cause congestion, operational disruption, high cost expenses, unnecessary wastes and environmental pollution, which eventually resulting significant financial losses. As a result, business and environmental sustainability will not be achieved. In order to overcome these hindrances, a novel performance model of Lean, Agile, Resilience and Green (LARG) is proposed as management tools for enhancing the business and environmental sustainability in seaport supply chain operations. The compatibility of LARG paradigms in seaport supply chain need to be identified and analysed to achieve the research aim. This paper employed a compatibility analysis for the new LARG paradigm for enhancing seaport supply chain practices. In this analysis, all potential paradigms are thoroughly reviewed and further validated by the domain experts consisting of academic and industry experts. The result of this paper shows that 17 selected LARG paradigms are compatible with 23 seaport supply chain practices respectively. For future research, the identified paradigms can be further investigated for many purposes such as measuring their influence on seaport supply chain practices and even assessing their applicability. It is worth mentioning that this research outcomes can assist Malaysian seaport practitioners to develop an enhanced management paradigm to boost their performance based on LARG model. Moreover, this model also can be applied globally as it is able to be adapted, revised and adjusted to suit the seaport preferences. As a result, this model able to enhance business capabilities, operational efficiencies and competitive advantages of seaport supply chain operations globally.
The Straits of Malacca and Singapore is without hesitation, a vital sea lane of communication with the geographical advantage of linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Geographically, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore is shallow and fairly narrow on its eastern part and has created one of the most important traffic choke points in the world. Being a crucial sea-lane has experience the Straits with high density of vessel traffic. The increase in shipping activities has risen the challenge in safety of navigation and marine environmental protection problem which generally end up with huge financial losses for the seafarers and damages to the marine environment. Owing significant limitations in the geographical landscape, this article has primary objectives to examine how navigational safety and marine environment can be effectively protect using existing regulatory instruments. This article provides a review and analysis of existing laws and regulations to assess the status of navigational safety for marine environmental protection in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. The article also evaluates potential strategies to this problem using insights from literature. The article finds out that the littoral States to the Straits of Malacca and Singapore should adopt more forward-looking perspective in the formulation of legal measures to enhance navigational safety for marine environmental protection. The article finally suggests the potential strategies for navigational safety and marine environmental protection in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. This will help in setting priorities for future efforts in improving navigational safety for marine environmental protection with regard to international and regional initiatives.
Transport sector activities are the major sources of pollutants to the atmosphere and natural environment. Seaports contribute significantly to the cause of pollution in the water and water front areas they are located. Like other industrial nations and regions, maritime sector in Malaysia continues to grow and expand to facilitate global and regional trade and as a maritime-related activities result have proliferated in sea and shore. This has exposed seaports to a growing pressure and posed challenges to operate in an environmentally friendly manner. This paper aims to classify environmental issues caused by shipping and seaport activities and propose strategies to reduce environmental issues in seaports at east coast of peninsular Malaysia. Using quantitative research design, data was collected through a survey questionnaire from personnel at east coast Malaysian seaports. The result of this paper indicates that garbage dumping, air pollution, maintenance waste, dust, noise pollution, bilge water, dredging operations and oil spill are the most important issues contributed by seaports activities. This paper suggested several strategies that can be implemented to mitigate environmental issues at east coast of Malaysia including Kuantan, Kemaman and Kerteh seaports.
The maritime sector in Malaysia is best known globally due to the Straits of Malacca and being a nation surrounded by sea. Malaysia also has a substantial maritime industry consisting of numerous shipyards, ports and terminal faculties, ship services and a plethora of other companies and institutions with maritime oriented activities and become essential components of the Malaysia’s maritime clusters. Issues such as underutilised intermodal terminals, uneven proportions in the freight transport infrastructure and road and seaport congestions prevent Malaysian seaports from achieving their full potential in serving their respective hinterlands. The key factors to improve Malaysian dry port or intermodal terminals are transport network; container planning; competition; location and, externalities. The paper does not only present the critical challenges faced by Malaysian intermodal terminals especially dry ports and the implications for seaport competency but it also provides strategies to utilise the Malaysian freight multimodal system to amplify seaports’ performance in serving their hinterlands. As such, this may warrant policy makers to devise a comprehensive national master plan for the maritime sector in order for Malaysia to further develop her maritime industry and economies.