Ever visited a container terminal and watched the lashing teams having hour-long breaks waiting for next bay to be ready for them to do their job? The real reason might be that lashing teams are assigned in a hierachical manner, limiting their lashing assignments to neighbouring bays in accordance with a specific quay crane's work during a port stay.

Now the solution to break this dependancy is here: The ARL Lashing Planner, planning for high utilisation of lashing teams across not only all bays on a vessel, but all vessels alongside at berth. Read more here.

In later shipZine editions, learn about the safety aspect of lashing planning: Plan to avoid work in unsafe zone & times onboard the vessel.

Still using a whiteboard or an excel sheet to keep track of next week's incoming vessels and their assigned berthing location? Why not try out arl-shipping.com's Berthing Planner Light for free: Sign-up here and get a link for download in return.

The ARL shipZine goes to social networking -follow us in Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin by clicking on the icons in upper right corner. And notice how the articles of this shipZine edition can be easily shared with your own network on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin account.

Most of the developed world is struggling to emerge from the grip of recession. This is in stark contrast to the economies of the developing world, who are exhibiting impressive rates of growth. It is probably going to be some time before the economies in Europe and elsewhere are able to sustain significant growth. This means that businesses are having to reset expectations as to what ‘business as usual’ actually means.

Over the past few years, the terms low cost, value and service have become the norm when describing the kinds of products and services that people are buying. The downturn has forced every business to focus only on the things that are essential for their operations. At the same time, the lack of funding has reduced budgets encouraging the ‘do more with less’ attitude. It is therefore no surprise that those companies who are able to provide great service at low cost are the ones doing well.

At OnOnShipping, we view this environment as the new normal and our goal is to be able to provide our customers with the best service at the lowest cost. To do this we are exploiting technology in innovative ways and also looking at how we can build the organisation in order to have the lowest operating costs. With all of these efforts, our primary yardstick is customer value and customer satisfaction. If we do this, we should be able to meet our goal of lowest rates combined with great service. This approach is not new and is best illustrated by low cost airlines such as Easyjet in the UK and Southwest in the United States. The success of these has prompted a wave of similar companies across the world. However, there is no equivalent in the maritime arena and we think it’s time that this changed. OnOn Shipping is the result.