Thome Ship Management vice president supply chain Peter Schellenberger analyses the challenges impacting the global supply chain, reports Riviera.
Supply chain challenges
A new Pandora’s box has opened when it comes to challenges to the supply chain, says Thome Ship Management vice president supply chain Peter Schellenberger.
He explains there are two sets of challenges – those that have been around a long time, and newer issues. “We have to differentiate between issues that have been around for a long time in our industry that we are trying to solve, including smart tools and standardisation, and the current challenges, including Ukraine and Russia and the issues with ports in China [closing due to the zero-Covid policy].”
He sums up, “Just as we thought life would normalise again, we had to realise a new Pandora’s Box has opened and this makes us again look and think about what we can do.”
Era of collaboration
One positive thing to come out of the effects of the pandemic and other challenges on the supply chain is a new era of collaboration within the shipping sector has arrived. Mr Schellenberger comments, “We are a small gear in this huge gear box and no matter how nimble and diligent we all think we are in operation we cannot escape from external influences. There is now a realisation of how dependent we are on collaboration.”
He adds, “This is what we are seeing now, as we are waking up to this new world. We see new business ventures and we can see this in Singapore Maritime Week – there is a hunger from people to lean over and discuss and exchange, as there is an openness never seen before. Sharing is not something traditionally done in shipping, but new fuels, sustainability, ESG reporting, nobody can do this alone, not even bigger companies. If something good has come out of the last few years, it is probably this.”
A good example of collaboration is shown by one of Thome Ship Management’s current initiatives – it has established a new company Vanir Marine, and at the beginning of April it received a grant from MPA in Singapore for this venture to build a Maritime Digital Market for like-minded Consortia members. The new venture fuses both scalability and digitalisation.
Mr Schellenberger says, “We are looking at scalability – Thome has 147 active ports, 57 regular ports and 14 key ports and in all those places we must be well distributed. With 200 plus ships, we have a fair weight with suppliers. While with a fleet of 400-500 ships you gain more attention, not only in prices but with support and in firefighting crises and so forth.”
To overcome these issues and build up the fleet, the new venture will increase scalability with like-minded companies clubbing together.
Thome Ship Management wanted to create a neutral platform for competitors to feel they can work together and be open in areas including procurement. Mr Schellenberger explains the benefits, “Lots of things can be achieved if you share data and analyse gaps. And it allows us to semi-automate processes in our industry – the shipping sector is still quite archaic when it comes to that.”
The new digital marketplace will also allow suppliers to standardise and streamline stocktaking and limit financial risk.
‘Amazonising’ the supply chain
Mr Schellenberger explains, “We want to Amazonise what we do and help our people on board to make smart decisions for sourcing – by scaling up with other like-minded companies, we can also use standardised technical catalogues which are not available at this moment.”
The new initiative will also allow Thome to look at procurement facilitators. “We decided to create a system around this that takes care of the whole communications between vessel suppliers and us. We want to link and integrate with all systems and have a platform processing all these, including contract management, allowing for semi-automated and standardised catalogues linked to this platform.”
The MPA grant is important as it allows the venture to be scaled out to other markets, not just Singapore.
The Maritime Digital Market will also allow crew on ships to do more, with the right smart tools.
Mr Schellenberger says, “The crew on our ships are a new generation using digital devices. When they join the ship, they go back 20 years and use excel sheets; that is what we want to change.”
Thome Ship Management is also involved in other initiatives to boost the use of smart tools and digitalisation, including a smart maritime network for the standardisation of data.
“This will allow us to standardise and use analysis for the benefit of the shipowners,” Mr Schellenberger says.
Turning from long-term supply chain issues to more recent events, Mr Schellenberger touches upon Chinese port closures and the Ukraine Russia war, and how stakeholders have been learning how to deal with such obstacles.
“Multi sourcing is a huge supply chain challenge, for example, if factories are closed in Ukraine and if ports are closed in China, we have a problem. But we have learned from Covid. Between stakeholders we were able to move mountains, because of trust established and everyone went out of their way, even with the constraints of working from home.”
He adds, “The rest of the world realised that zero-Covid was not sustainable, but it will take China longer to realise. In the meantime, we simply must deal with this, but need to find a plan B. This is not easy, and any kind of plan B is a completely different ball game.”
This all leads back to communication, as with the longer-term supply issues.
“We know we can’t escape these issues, but we can communicate properly. We need to be transparent in what we do and as a shipmanager, there are two-way communications, communicating internally and making sure stakeholders know what is happening and then with clients, as they need to buy in and understand.”
Mr Schellenberger says that while shipmanagers used to sometimes be opaque, this is now consigned to the past. “The more we communicate, it is easier to decide on alternatives. There is nothing we can do in a silo and clients must be part of it. We need to document as much as we can.”
Transparency and scalability
Circling back to transparency and scalability, he says, “There is a lot of potential to leverage in increasing the visibility of where things are. It allows for accurate information on ship-to-ship transfers, logistics hubs can be used in a more efficient way and the biggest efficiency gains are through better planning.”
He points out that more than 50% of shipping transactions have less than 72 hours’ notice. But disruptions, such as port closures in China, are focusing stakeholders on the supply chain and ensuring they plan. “It is forcing us to adapt our strategies,” Mr Schellenberger says.
The emergence of new fuels has also increased the emphasis on collaboration and scalability. Thome Ship Management is already managing some dual-fuelled LNG ships and is putting feelers out for completely new technology.
Mr Schellenberger comments, “We need a relationship with the main engine makers, we must be close to them and involved in terms of proof of concept and for training purposes. Our crew must be ready to manage this new technology, so we need to engage with knowledge from the source.”
Thome Ship Management has just over 200 ships, a mix of container ships (feeder and medium-sized), tankers and bulk carriers. The company recently started a new joint venture in Germany, which it sees as a growth area for container ships.
Mr Schellenberger comments, “The German market is container-driven and that is part of the reason why we have invested in Hamburg. We are looking for more diversification in that space, and where we can manage tankers, we can manage container ships as well. The standards are excellent in the tanker sector and translate to container ships, which the owners appreciate.”
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Source: Riviera
