Criticality Analysis of A Sea Port`s Shore Cranes Using Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

Abstract

Introduction/Background Critical assets are the organizational resources of crucial importance for maintaining operations and achieving the organization's mission. The criticality of organization assets is continuously researched by numerous authors. Ports have critical importance for the global supply chain. Together with the port workforce, port infrastructure, and port superstructure, which are interconnected with the port information system, port machinery enables the functioning of a port. Depending on the characteristics of a port (level of its specialization, etc.), there are various port machinery types used in the cargo handling process, and all of them do not have the same criticality level. In the available literature, no research directly related to the criticality analysis of shore cranes in use at a terminal in a seaport can be found. It was one of the principal initial motives of the author to write this paper. Methodology After an overview of literature sources dealing with assets` criticality analysis and a condensed theoretical consideration of the general importance of ports and port machinery, this paper shows the results of research on the port`s shore cranes‘ criticality ranks, using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The research included a group of shore cranes at the Dry Bulk Cargo Terminal in the Port of Bar JSC (Montenegro), which consists of three gantry cranes (with a capacity per item of 12 t), two mobile harbor cranes with a capacity of 144 t and 124 t and a ship loader for cereals with a capacity of 300 t/h. Criticality analysis was conducted based on four selection criteria: C1-if the shore crane type is an element of cargo handling technology with priority cargo group; C2-level of hourly productivity; C3-level of operating costs; C4-level of cost generated by shore crane downtime during the loading/unloading process. The AHP hierarchy framework used was a three-level model: “level 0” – goal; “level 1” the – criterion; “level 2” the – choice. Results/Discussion According to the calculated level of criticality based on the defined selection criteria, the highest criticality rank was observed for the mobile harbor crane with a capacity of 144 t, which had the highest rank for three out of four selection criteria. Conclusion The results of the research can be used as a base for further research studies in this field as well as a reliable base for a very wide range of managerial activities directed to improvements in the maintenance system of shore cranes as well as in the cargo handling system where the cranes are used. As one of the potential purposes of the results, with a high level of importance, their potential usage for introducing, adequate modeling, and implementing the concept of predictive maintenance of shore cranes (with all related benefits) is pointed out.