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OCR for page 69
THE MARINE TERMINAL-
AN ELEMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Productivity from a
Rail Transportation Perspective
DAVID BURNS
Abundant material exists on current technologies of intermodal
facilities, including marine terminals. ~ will focus upon what
Burlington Northern (BN) Railroad sees, from our own experi-
ence, that inhibits productivity at marine terminals which we
serve. ~ will then comment on what we would try to do if we were
responsible for that operation.
Normally, ~ would not attempt to do this. It is annoying to
have an outsider tell me what is wrong with BN's intermodal
terminals, and what he would do to improve them, especially
when he has little knowledge concerning their practical capacities
and no responsibility to implement the proposed panaceas.
~ am willing to offer such comments here for two reasons. First,
the panel is dealing with marine terminal productivity not in an
isolated vacuum, but as an element of a transportation system.
David Burns is director of the Intermodal Department, Burlington North-
ern Railroad.
69
OCR for page 70
70
Since railroads and motor carriers are also elements, it is proper
and productive that we work together to streamline the system
and make it work better in order to better identify and meet
customer needs. Second, railroads, in a sense, are often customers
of marine terminals, as you are often customers of ours.
At EN we are learning to listen attentively when customers
speak. How else will we know what they need to compete and grow,
and what we can do to increase our value to them? Likewise, ~ hope
my comments will be helpful to the workshops on improving the
productivity of marine terminals, and in improving their product
and value to their customers.
IMPROVING SYSTEM PRODUCTIVITY
1. What marine terminals might do to improve system productivity
at their end.
a. Have special gate lanes for special, volume moves.
Presently, except for longshoremen-drayed interpier moves, all
shipments go through the gate line on a first-come, first-serve
basis. EN routinely sets up special lanes for high volumes. Unit
type moves, such as a large number of import loads of a certain
ship or from a certain customer for a certain train, reduce gate
time for these repetitive, prearranged units, as well as free up
space and time at-the regular gate. For example, when a railroad
has an inbound train of empty containers on even export loads to
ground and bring to a pier, run them through a special lane rather
than through the regular lanes.
b. Make pier hours of operation more flexible and responsive to
user needs.
Rather than having all pier employees take breaks and lunches
simultaneously, stagger the times so that the particular pier is
performing work during the entire shift. Draymen and users oth-
erwise get caught during the dead time. Some piers are now down
20 percent of the time.
Furthermore, stagger starting times so that piers work more
closely with the 12-hour-day pattern in effect by users nominally
6 a.m. to 6 p.m. rather than the traditional 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
work day on piers.
OCR for page 71
7
1
Base work schedules on volume requirements, rather than set
similar hours each and every day. Presently users fight to get in
during the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. window in order to avoid extra charges
to set up extra shifts. Many shipments would more logically and
smoothly flow on a second or third shift. But even when an extra
shift is arranged at extra cost, the flow is further impeded by a
1-hour shutdown between the day and afternoon shift, and a third
shift that only works 5 hours between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. This
impedes orderly and fluid asset utilization. '
c. Obtain ocean bill of trading information from shippers rather
than draymen.
Presently, gate delay results from draymen submitting ocean
bill of lading information (vessel, voyage, or destination data) to
the pier operator. In the case of EN, we have to call the shipper
to obtain this and in turn furnish it to the pier via the draymen.
The shipper has previously contacted the pier to book space. Why
not have the shipper provide all necessary movement and billing
information at that time, either via phone or facsimile electronic
mail? This would cut out the middleman, plus save time and
paper both at the rail and pier gate facilities.
d. Change Customs procedure of bond verification.
Customs needs to verify units moving in bond. But at present,
an additional seal is placed on shipments moving individually in
bond, or under a master to cover shipments of less than six units.
These require time to apply and then subsequently record and
verify as the shipment moves through the pipeline. Is the second
seal necessary in addition to the current verification procedures?
e. Eliminate gate requirements that cause drivers to have to
leave their tractor.
At many piers, drivers must leave their tractors to complete
paperwork. BN is working to simplify or eliminate such paperwork,
including the use of talk-back speakers, so that drivers do not
have to get out. This reduces total gate time considerably, plus
streamlining the overall paperflow.
f. Organize, stripe, label, and number the parking areas more
clearly to expedite pickup/drop of.
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72
BN's intermodal terminals are not laid out as well as some, nor
organized as well as we intend. But we are working hard at and
seeing the benefits of well-marked and -organized staging areas.
Our Seattle International Gateway and South Seattle facilities are
good examples of such efforts that have significantly reduced the
time it takes customers to drop or pickup units. Such efforts also
fit right into the increasing use of computer assists to improve
facility operation as contrasted to manual methods.
9. Establish a focal coordinating association at each terminal to
identify and resolve problems.
Most railroads have an agents Association or an operating of-
ficers association in each major terminal area. Meetings are held
monthly to identify and resolve operating problems, which en-
hances the productivity of the product for the customer. Per-
haps this concept should be applied to the components of the
marine terminal network namely the steamship lines, pier oper-
ators, major drayage firms, and railroads. Each would designate
a knowledgeable representative empowered to try new ways of re-
solving productivity impediments. The group would establish an
agenda and prepare progress reports to otherwise avoid becoming
just a debating society. In other words, the group would talk and
try, rather than just talk. The group might see the benefit of an
outside review of paperwork and paperflow systems in an effort to
identify and implement a more common system. Right now, each
component of the system pretty well goes it alone, and others have
to adapt as best they can. This often produces additional work or
creates errors and delays.
Such an operating officers association might further see areas
for standardizing handling equipment. Presently each component
group is pretty well going it alone. There are surely areas where
greater knowledge of the entire system's individual needs might
produce more versatile and universal useable equipment, for ex-
ample, straddle cranes wide enough to go over a flat car as well as
a box, or pier cranes that can bottom as well as top pick.
2. What the rail partners are trying to do to improve system pro-
ductivity.
a. Improve throughput time for draymen.
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73
Time is money, whether the railroad, the marine terminal, or
the customer provides the drayage between the pier and the rail-
car facility. One way to speed this up includes advance scheduling
of deliveries, so that on arrival the driver is sent to a backside car
spot where a crane is waiting to put the unit directly onto the rail
car.
Another way is to have the railroad waive inspection of units ar-
riving at the gate, and instead accept and use the marine terminal
departure record as contrasted to a duplicate inspection process.
- A third way is virtual computerization of the gate arrival process
at the rail facility. Rather than spend time manually writing down
information from the cirayman regarding the shipment, have as
much as possible predelivered and already entered. Enter the
rest direct as the driver gives it while the rail facility employee
is hearing it and looking right at the unit. This saves time and
prevents errors.
A fourth way is to eventually have all movement and billing
information transrn~tted electronically from the customer to the
carrier. This is being worked on in a number of areas, including
the Port of Seattle, and is a logical next step in data processing
productivity to benefit transportation system participants and our
customers.
At our Seattle International Gateway, we had hoped to get
draymen out within 30 minutes after they had entered. We are
presently averaging 10 minutes, in large part due to these steps.
b. Improve load ratios for draymen.
Even though EN does not provide drayage to and from its Seat-
tIe International Gateway, the railroad feels obliged to minimize
one-way or bob-taiT moves as much as possible. As a result, we or-
ganize the daily operation to provide a return unit for the draymen
to take back to the pier, if at all possible.
3. Some ideas that might work for you, for us, and for our cus-
tomers.
a. Implement neutral chassis pools.
While this concept is not new, it appears to have wide areas left
for implementation.
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74
It is based on one firm, partial to no one (hence neutral), owning,
dispatching, maintaining, and billing for the chassis supply and
support function.
Such a pool was implemented at our Chicago Intermodal Hub
in the fall of 1985. Thus far, it has generated far more satisfaction
than dissatisfaction. We have eliminated chassis swings within the
facility, either from one chassis to another, or from a stockpile to
another. Instead, units go from rail car onto a chassis and out the
gate. Should the outbound drayman not be there, the units are
parked short term in a holding lot at the rail terminal, or longer
term at an off-site surge lot operated by the pool contractor or
the customer. But the units are handled only once. In addition,
chassis ownership, operation, and maintenance cost less than the
individual participants were able to obtain.
b. Implement a neutral surge facility.
Neither marine nor rail terminals appear to be logical places
to congest with units that cannot move that day. Space at these
facilities is costly. Efficiency is improved with steady flow logistics,
not start and stop. Terminals work hard to develop capacities and
contingency plans to survive these situations.
Wouldn't it be better to use the transportation system assets to
utilize a neutral surge lot, in between the pier or the rail terminal,
and to hold surplus supply until it can be fed into either end? Like
a blocking diode, the neutral surge lot would come into play only
when either end became congested. It would preclude component
overload.
Our Chicago neutral chassis pool provides this feature for longer
term surges, and we are pushing the system to respond to short-
term surges as well. The middle ground has more capacity than
either marine or rail facilities to store units that cannot move
immediately.
c.
between.
Get rail cars out onto the piers and eliminate drayage in
This idea is not new and is fraught with feasibility and im-
plementation difficulties. It would require a large surge and sort
facility in between backside and shipside. It would not apply to all
locations and situations, but it certainly appears to have benefits
for some, including:
OCR for page 75
75
elimination of the entire drayage component and expense;
. ability to make last minute changes in load patterns to reflect
market or customer requirements; and
. reduction of overall terminal space requirements by using
high-density stacking and sorting technologies within the surge-
sort facility that are not feasible at an individual terminal.
Marine Terminal
Productivity as it Relates
to the Trucking Industry
ROBERT A. CURRY
The majority of cargo, with the exception of steel, automobiles,
paper, and lumber, that is handled today is containerized in some
fashion, so this report involving issues of productivity at marine
terminals as related to the trucking industry is directed primarily
toward container facilities.
The basic purpose of a modern marine terminal is to berth a
vessel, to Toad and discharge from 500 to 3,000 containers, and to
sail the vessel in the shortest period of time. Because of the impor-
tance of maintaining schedules and of the high daily cost, the main
commitment of the terminal activity is to turn the vessel around in
the shortest period of time. This leaves the other required services
of the terminal, such as delivering and receiving containers from
truckers, in a secondary role. Containerization and the secondary
role that has been left for truckers has created dramatic changes in
that part of the trucking industry that interfaces with steamship
lines and marine terminals.
It was not that Tong ago that the owner-operator was the ex-
ception, not the rule, in the movement of cargoes to and from
the steamship berths. Ten years ago, it was hard to find many
independent owner-operators in the various harbors. At that time
there were many large carriers (mostly unionized) who owned, op-
erated, and maintained their own equipment. They handled the
bulk of the containers that were moved between the steamship
berths and the shippers, consignees, or raid yards. These carriers
Robert A. Curry is president of California Cartage Co.
OCR for page 76
76
no longer operate trucks in the harbor. For many reasons, some
relating to the productivity at the marine terminals, these truck
lines have gone completely out of this type of trucking business.
Today's harbor carriers are a different breed altogether. The
old line carriers have been replaced with skeleton companies op-
erating fleets of owner-operators. Some of these owner-operators
make a sincere attempt to maintain their tractors at legal and
safe standards and to carry reasonable limits of insurance; how-
ever, there are a large number of these owner-operators who are
working today without proper authority, without insurance, and
with questionable road-worthy equipment. Many of the owner-
operators in the Southern California area today are non-English
speaking, and some may even be undocumented workers.
As the large carriers disappeared from the harbor, so too are
the quality owner-operators disappearing. The owner-operator is
paid either a flat rate or a percentage of revenue for each container
that he transports, so his ability to make a reasonable income
is dependent to a great deal upon how fast he can turn around
at a given marine terminal and on how many containers he can
either pick up or deliver each day. Many of the practices and
policies employed by marine terminals directly affect the produc-
tivity of the trucking industry serving these terminals. Changes
in some of these practices and policies could significantly increase
the productivity as it relates to the trucking of these containers.
Regarding the two types of container terminal operations, the
wheeled operation is far superior in productivity for the trucker
than is the stack operation. Anytime a trucker, who is making
multiple moves of containers, can drop an-empty on a chassis
and immediately pick up a Toad, the productivity of the operation
will be much greater than if the same trucker had to go under a
transtainer to have the empty removed and then repeat the op-
eration to pick up a load. The productivity of a trucker moving
containers from a wheel-configuration marine terminal is generally
50 to 100 percent greater than if he were moving the same con-
tainers from a stacked operation using transtainers. The trucking
industry has generally found public terminals to be substantially
more restrictive than steamship-owned terminals; consequently,
the productivity at these terminals is less. It would appear that
there are issues pertinent to productivity that involve both types
OCR for page 77
77
of operations; however, from the trucking point of view more im-
pediments seem to exist at the grounded container terminal.
GROUNDED CONTAINER OPERATIONS
The processing by the trucker of the paperwork required by the
terminal company is similar for both the wheeled operation ter-
minal and the terminal whose containers are grounded. However,
the physical aspects of picking up and delivering the containers are
very different. In a terminal operating a grounded operation, the
trucker is responsible for going to a separate area of the terminal
and securing a road-worthy chassis. If he cannot find a chassis
free of defects, he has two choices. He can take the chassis to the
garage area of the terminal and wait while the defect in the chassis
is repaired, or he can just take the chassis. Many times the driver
just takes the chassis so he can get his container and be on his
way. Once he has the bare chassis, he moves to the aisle where the
container he wants is stored. There may be from 1 to 10 trucks
in front of him waiting for the transtainer to service them. In
some cases, the transtainer operator must dig through the stack of
containers to secure the desired one. Depending upon the volume
of traffic at the terminal, the elapsed time to pick up the chassis
and secure the container can vary from 45 minutes to 4 hours.
When that same trucker returns with the empty container, he
must have the completed unit inspected by a mechanic. These
mechanics are looking for every type of exception from cut tires
to missing twist locks. These exceptions are noted on the inter-
changes that the longshore union clerk prepares, and, wherever
possible, the exceptions are costed and charged to the trucker.
There are always less exceptions taken on returned equipment at
marine terminals who have wheeled operations versus those with
grounded operations. Most marine terminals using a grounded
operation are easy going out and tough Corning in.
The trucker then gets in the empty receiving line. Some termi-
nals only apply one piece of yard-handling equipment to handle
the decking of empties. In some cases, the drivers must wait in
the empty line until the lift or transtainer operator changes the
spreaders from 20 feet to 40 feet, or vice versa. If the termi-
nal had one top handier for the decking and setting up of 20-foot
OCR for page 78
78
containers and a similar piece of equipment for handling 40-foot
containers, a great deal of waiting would be eliminated. It would
also seem appropriate to try to coordinate the number of outbound
empty releases to the empties being returned so that they would
not have to be decked. The trucker could just drop the container
and chassis, thus speeding up the operation.
After delivering the empty, the trucker takes the chassis and
repeats the procedure described earlier for picking up a full con-
tainer. Because you have two separate operations inside the
terminal delivering the empty and picking up a load the time
elapsed for the trucker can vary from 1.5 hours to 6 hours.
The largest block movement of containers for any terminal is
the landbridge schedule. Because of the advent of stack trains, this
movement becomes extremely time sensitive. Sometimes the en-
tire vessel's landbridge discharge must be moved from the marine
terminal to the railroad within a period of less than 8 hours. Con-
sequently, a discharge from the vessel direct to the road chassis is
nearly imperative. However, if limitations or shortages of chassis
prevents this, then a system should be developed that places these
containers in one area so they are segregated from the local boxes.
Then transtainers can deliver them to the trucker without digging
into stacks. Because the railroads operate on a 24-hour basis,
ordinary landbridge movement lends itself to a night or weekend
operation, and moving these containers during other than normal
working hours tends to minimize congestion during the day.
GATE OPERATIONS
The productivity of a gate operation, as it relates to the trucking
company, varies greatly from marine terminal to marine terminal.
A major complaint of the trucker at many terminals is that he
has waited for an inordinate amount of time outside the terminal
in line. This situation seems to be at its worst in the morning,
prior to the start of business, and just after the completion of the
lunch hour when work again is starting up at the marine terminal.
Possibly a system with staggered lunch hours, thus keeping the
terminal open during the noon hour, would alleviate the situation
in the afternoon, especially at heavy volume terminals with back-
to-back schedules of vessel receiving and discharge.
OCR for page 79
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The releasing of cargo or containers and the handling of the
necessary paperwork, is also different at every marine terminal.
For example, at one steamship line, the trucker must go to the
steamship line's container freight station (CFS) in order to secure
the release of the shipment and the proper paperwork which will
allow him to pick up the loaded container at'their container yard
(CY). In this particular case, the CFS is not located within the
confines of the CY area, so the trucker is forced to make a stop at
a separate location before he can obtain the necessary paperwork
to pick up his container. At other marine terminals, truckers are
sometimes forced to go to more than one building to secure the
paperwork and, in the process of doing this, they must stand in
separate lines to consummate each transaction. Each of these
situations consumes valuable time, reduces the trucker's ability to
make the maximum number of turnarounds each day, and causes
congestion inside the terminal with tractors parked wherever they
can to satisfy the terminal's procedure.
The trucker's productivity would be greatly increased if he had
to only stand in one line and see one person to consummate all
transactions. No matter whether the trucker was picking up a
full, delivering an empty, or both, the operation would be substan-
tially more productive if what was necessary to consummate the
operation were handled by one person at one place.
AVAILABLE PRODUCTIVE WORKING HOURS
AT A MARINE TERMINAL
When analyzing the marine terminal's working hours, which are
between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., it is apparent that there is probably
less than 7 hours of productive working hours when you discount
start-up time, coffee breaks, and the lunch hour. The railroads,
the motor carriers, and the airlines have all adopted flexible start-
ing times and flexible work needs for the purpose of increasing
overall productivity. However, the steamship industry still main-
tains very rigid working hours. Congestion and delay time for the
truckers would be greatly reduced if service hours were increased.
Productivity would also be enhanced if flexible work hours were
developed so that clerks and marine terminals could continue to
operate during breaks and lunch periods.
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93
Given a steady, multipurpose complement of labor, the terminal
operating company or stevedoring company could:
. Effectively train the people as to what needs to be done and
how best to do it.
. Educate the workers as to the yard layout, traffic flow pat-
terns, and the general methodology employed at that particular
facility.
. Switch workers from one type of work to another, as the
workload demands change from day to day.
. Introduce a productivity related, incentive pay system that
rewards workers as higher plateaus of productivity are achieved.
. Give the labor force a sense of pride, self-satisfaction, and
belonging that usually doesn't exist today.
. Pay each worker at the highest rate for which he is qualified,
regardless of the type of work performed on a given day.
. Pay the steady workers directly, on a company check, instead
of through an employer association.
Clearly, we don't have these things today. We also have little
rapport with our workers today, and it's not at all surprising
considering the system under which they are employed. We don't
have the flexibility and dedication we need, but we should strive to
get these things in the next round of contract negotiations. U.S.
companies cannot continue to afford to subsidize underproductive
labor at the high wage and fringe costs that currently exist.
CONCIJUSION
Continued research into automation and other technological
advances, in terminal operations and stevedoring, is desirable
and essential. It should not, however, take place at the expense
of ignoring the human factor in productivity. When we arrive
at fully automated cranes, on fully automated terminals, the
people will become relatively unimportant. Most indications are
that such a date is far away. Until then, the prudent terminal
operator and stevedoring company would be well advised to focus
its primary attention toward improving the performance of front-
line supervisors, as well as increasing the efficiency of the people
who physically perform the work.
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94
Changing the status quo will require a great deal of day-to-day
management attention and a clear set of management demands
to be put forward at the collective-bargaining table.
Productivity Concerns
in Intermodal Terminal Operations
JOHN GRAY
Rail intermodal in the last decade has been the prime, long-
distance-service, land transportation alternative for container-
shipping lines and their customers because of lower line haul
transportation costs than over-the-road transportation, ease of
interchangeability of container equipment, and an inherent ability
to accommodate shi~size lots of containers, whereas a motor
carrier has a problem taking 500 boxes at a crack.
The capability of the railroads to move large amounts of cargo
on relatively short notice creates unique problems within both
the intermodal rail terminal and the marine terminal because
everything tends to move in large chunks at a time. The result has
been to force changes in terminal design and operating practices,
including more flexible terminal design, changes in container-
handling equipment, changes in operating procedures, and more
flexible and creative labor practices.
To date, five so-called intermodal container transfer facilities,
which are on-dock (or near-dock) container-loading facilities for
rail cars, have been constructed or are in planning in the United
States. The Port of Tacoma has two facilities, one on-dock (North
Yard), one off-dock (South Intermodal Terminal) . Burlington
Northern's Seattle International Gateway is an off-dock facility.
The Port of San Francisco's Intermodal Container Transfer Fa-
cility is an on-dock operation, and the Port of I,os Angeles/Long
Beach Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF), an off-dock
facility, is the largest of all by far.
John Gray is president of Intermodal Management Services (IMS), a
terminal-operating company. Several IMS terminals serve the ocean freight
industry.
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9s
All of these facilities have certain common characteristics. They
attempt to minimize drayage by locating the rail intermodal facil-
ity as close as possible to the marine facilities. They are designed
to minimize the amount of chassis and containers stored at the
facility. And they all employ improved freight documentation
procedures, which is the key to making the facilities viable.
An innovation in our Seattle and Tacoma facilities that will
probably be a model for the planned new facilities in California
includes common use (between marine terminals and intermodal
rail terminals) of the trailer interchange report (TIR). It's silly to
have a marine terminal complete a detailed TIR and then get over
to the railroad and inspect the whole thing all over again after
a 3-mile trip on the highway. So, at Seattle and at Tacoma, we
depend upon the marine terminal-furnished TIR. We think they
can do just as good a job as we can. All we do is a quick cursory
visual inspection to see if there's any obvious wreck damage.
We have worked with the railroads and the container-shipping
lines to affect computer-to-computer transfers of freight forward-
ing and billing data. When a truck shows up at the Seattle
intermodal terminal we already know it's coming; we have essen-
tial data in the system; and we can move the container through
without any paperwork. Investing the terminal operator with
control of documentation aids the centralization and automation
of this function.
Advance notice of empty and loaded containers prior to the
arrival of a train at the intermodal terminal is very helpful. We
have formalized this to provide 24-hour advance notification of
the arrival of specific containers at the terminal. Our service
is reliable enough to back that up. This enables the terminal
operator to meet the freight with adequate resources as soon as
it arrives.
One of the key elements in operating rail intermodal facilities
is no different than the trucking side or the marine side of the
business. That is the necessity of labor agreements that are in
tune with the most productive operations. Our facilities at Seattle
and Tacoma and elsewhere have a number of characteristics in
their labor agreements that provide a great deal of flexibility
to innovate as needed. For one, they provide for a single job
classification everybody gets the same pay. That eliminates all
the squabbles.
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96
Where there are peaks and valleys in the workload because of
ship schedules, people may have to work 12 to 14 hours on 1 day
and then face 2 or 3 days in which there is little to do. This creates
a significant potential for injustice. In the face of this situation,
we have put our key people on 40-hour work guarantees. This
provides labor with the incentive to get in there and get that job
done when it's needed, and it provides management with a stable
core of skilled workers.
We have no work rules. ~ think work rules are an inhibitor
to any type of productivity at all. We have common sense, and
we have an expedited grievance procedure that deals with any
injustice that would be created by a system that does not have
work rules.
Labor productivity is emphasized in our terminals. Everybody
in the terminal knows what the lifts per man-hour are, in our
parlance. As we get more experienced we expect to put in certain
kinds of incentive programs as well, to see if we can heighten
those numbers even further, so there's an incentive for everybody
to come up with ways to improve the procedures.
To control the terminal, you have to control the documentation.
In Seattle and Tacoma, we control the clerks.
The labor and supervision for loading and unloading are critical.
Our people are out there, all day every day, supervising the
truckers on the job. The criterion that we've established is that
all truckers have to be in and out of the facility in less than 15
minutes. In fact, in most cases they're out in less than 10 minutes.
There's a lot of talk about lift equipment. We operate four
facilities with six different kinds of equipment. From experience,
~ can report that the effect of lift equipment and yard design
on productivity are much less than the effect of labor practices
and agreements, the quality of people you have, the way they're
treated, and the quality of supervision. The control of documen-
tation and gate procedures are also more important than terminal
design and equipment in achieving productive operations.
Preplanning is an important element of productive operations.
In Seattle we have terminal coordinators who work with the
steamship lines, the port, and railroad to plan ahead as best as
they can as to what we're going to take in each day eastbound and
what we've got coming westbound, and who try to schedule the
business as best as they can so that we can get good productivity
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at the terminal. We make sure that every Toad that is accepted
goes out that night. Eastbound loads are never held over. Nor do
we accept more than we can handle.
Cycle loading and unloading at track side is a key element.
That way the trucker and the container-shipping line are assured
that that chassis is going to get back to them. It's not going to
get lost; it's not going to end up being dropped in a rail yard.
Expedited gate procedures are also important. Computer-to-
computer transfers of data, the use of a common trailer inter-
change report, the use of manifests rather than individual bills—
all of these cut down on the amount of actual paper that needs
to be handled. Improvements in labor practices are absolutely
essential. Our single job category and rate of pay make it possible
for people to work as gate inspectors one day and equipment
operators the next. The variety improves the quality of the work
accomplished, as well as providing management flexibility.
The best possible terminal layout is long tracks with maneu-
vering room in between.
An obstacle to improved rail-water containerized transportation
is the incredible equipment imbalance. On the Pacific Coast,
eastbound containers are full, westbound containers are empty.
This tremendous waste of capacity has to be addressed to really
improve productivity.
The flood of import container traffic for auto parts is making
matters even worse. Motor carrier competition for the scarce
backhaul is greater now than it's ever been and will continue
to increase. These areas hamper intermodal development because
they have a tremendous impact on the profitability of the business.
Discussion
Hugh M. I`acey, Sea-I`and Service, Inc.: None of our
speakers has identified a technological breakthrough that is going
to improve productivity dramatically. Nor have they cried out
for a massive injection of capital. Instead, they have stressed
the human side of the business, the need for steady labor, better
management, and better communications.
This discussion was moderated by Hugh Lacey, retired vice-president of
Sea-Land Service, Inc.
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Robert Curry reminded us very succinctly that no one is in-
vesting in equipment. That signals a management problem. He
also talked about the need for more communication and flexible
hours, more understanding of each other's problems. David Burns
described the need for local labor-management coordinating com-
mittees. He also talked about a neutral chassis pool and a neutral,
single-facility storage yard.
John Gray stressed the human side of the business. He under-
scored the importance of planning as well as some nuts-and-boTts
basics such as advanced notification, flexible hours, and different
work rules.
Robert Senecal, Metropolitan Stevedore Co.: How can
the innovations in labor practices that have been suggested actu-
ally be implemented?
Hugh Lacey: There is no patent formula. Steady labor,
flexible work rules, and straight labor each may work in particular
circumstances.
David Burns, Burlington Northern Railroad: Our facil-
ity at Seattle is an interesting case in point. Most Burlington
Northern facilities include railroad clerks who do the paperwork.
The people who do the lifting on and off and the people who do
the hostTing are mostly nonunion contractor employees. Manage-
ment had to decide what kind of a work force to install at Seattle.
Against this backdrop, the teamsters thought the terminal should
be a teamsters' facility; the longshoremen thought it ought to be
a longshoremen facility.
In considering options, a consensus started forr~iing in manage-
ment that it would be better to be union rather than nonunion
at Seattle, provided that union affiliation would not deny man-
agement essential flexibility to operate productively. Discussion
centered on a composite work force with some union affiliation,
but who were not railroad employees. Today at the Seattle In-
ternational Gateway, the Brotherhood of Railroad and Airline
Clerical Employees represents all the employees, who are employ-
ees of the terminal operating contractor.
These former railroad workers lost pay, job security, and bene-
fits. What they got out of it was, in their own words, "ownership
of a job. What do they mean by that? The contractor can throw
them out tomorrow. With the railroad, the workers pointed out,
you have all manner of guarantees and a grievance procedure.
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Yet stringent work rules led to seniority bumping as the railroads
trimmed forces and operations. With the constant bumping, job
turnover was high. Job occupancy was transient. With flexible
work rules, the workers feel they own their job as long as they do
it right. They feel needed and appreciated.
John Gray, Intermo da] Management Services, ~c.: The
Seattle workers who left the railroad to work in the intermodal
terminal could have opted under railroad union contracts for jobs
for life, regardless of whether they worked or not. The majority
of workers who switched were relatively young. They opted for
productive jobs where they could contribute and take pride over a
guaranteed wage. These workers have no guarantee with me, and
~ really don't have a guarantee either, because ~ operate on a 30-
day canceliable contract with the railroad. Yet their productivity
is excellent, as good as any facility in the country, and the morale
is very, very high, because there's value to the job; they like what
they're doing; they're treated like human beings.
David Burns: All the Brotherhood of Railroad and Air-
line Clerks could see in the railroad industry was decline. With
the Seattle International Gateway, the union has increased dues-
· ~
paymg members.
Michael Gaffney, CorneB University: Under the single job
classification arrangement, what means are there for the work
force to have equitable treatment in terms of reassignment?
John Gray: Everybody basically has the same seniority date,
so you can't use seniority. Take away the job classification and
rate of pay issues, and conflicts disappear. When conflicts about
shifts or other matters do arise, we try informal methods ("Why
don't the day and night workers swap shifts after 6 months?" for
example). The informal methods seem to work better than rigid
postings.
Keith Christian, Port of Seattle: As the work force changes
over time, you will get different levels of seniority. Do you think
this will complicate the situation?
John Gray: Most of our workers are young. They have good
jobs, and have the capacity to do a lot more than they're doing
now. We do about 8,500 lifts a month at that terminal. That
same crowd can handle 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 lifts without any
problems. This is likely to be a very stable work force.
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BiB MongeBuzzo, Journal of Commerce: How is it pos-
sible to have steady employment of longshoremen in the face of
seasonal and regional fluctuations in cargo? Would the implica-
tion of a steady work force be fewer workers?
[. P. Robinson, American President Lines, [td.: ~ don't
know if it's possible or not. The only way you can afford a
steady worker is if the worker can perform more than one task.
A well-trained, steady work force makes a lot of sense, for more
reasons than just productivity. ~ think there's a definite emphasis
on safety. Also, the guy can begin to know where everything is
and how it works. But there's no magic wand to accomplishing
this. It's something our industry has to go after in the context of
collective bargaining.
If you got all the terminal operators in Los Angeles/Long Beach
together and asked if they want steady labor, there'd probably
be some that say no. There has to be room for the employee to
take a steady job if he wants to. There may be some terminal
operators who don't want that because of fluctuations in business
or whatever.
William Webster, University of California at Berkeley:
We've heard a lot about conditions on the West Coast. ~ haven't
heard much about the East Coast.
Roger Giesinger, Virginia International Terminals, Inc.:
We operate three terminals in Norfolk. We are going to strive
for flexibility in the next round of labor negotiations. Terminal
operators need both guaranteed people as well as casual labor in
order to handle surges in work. Another aspect of flexibility is
longer hours to operate the terminal on a straight time basis and
not on overtime. ~ think, in doing that, you create jobs.
Rudy Rubio, International :Longshoremen's and Ware-
housemen's Union: Labor has points of view as to how some
of these issues should be addressed, which requires that manage-
ment and labor together look at these problems. The agenda of
this meeting provides for this by means of workshops. A more
balanced view of these subjects may be contained in the reports
of the workshops.
Clifford Sayre, E. I. duPont de Nemours & Co.: Is the
labor reduction in force situation pretty much the same on the
East and West Coasts?
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Hugh [acey: They're quite different. One of them seems to
stress the status quo; the other has a great deal more flex to it.
Lee Lane, Association of American Railroads: The issue
of incentives for improving productivity has at least two dimen-
sions, incentives to encourage individual output and incentives for
output of the facility as a whole. Could someone elaborate on
incentives to achieve these different aspects of productivity?
John Gray: Our incentives are geared to improvements in unit
productivity, and that's better than trying to pick out individuals.
Anthony Petrizzo, Maersk Container Service Co.:
wanted to comment on aspects of the human element. As re-
gards West and East Coast differences, there is a significant age
difference. Longshoremen on the East Coast average about 57-
years-old as contrasted with workers a generation younger on the
West Coast. There's a different educational level and a different
work ethic. Years of working independently in a flexible work
environment possibly mean more to the younger group.
Sometimes it's helpful to look outside our own industry, to see
how other industries handle the human element. We can't look
just within ourselves and our own industry.
Hugh Lacey: One of the things we don't do enough of is the
exploring of what the other guy is doing. The attitude in our
industry is, "Who cares?" Other papers in the proceedings do
consider innovations tried elsewhere. As long as we're looking at
a human problem, we need to look at different human approaches,
because obviously ours hasn't worked so well up to now.
John Gray: My company will probably implement an agree-
ment similar to that in Seattle at another location, involving a
large group of people with an average age of about 52. Next year
I'll be able to tell you how that worked out. Some of the concepts
we use follow the Japanese model, and it works.
L. P. Robinson: The age of the worker is not that impor-
tant. We're not talking about pushing a button on a worker's
back to make the worker speed up. We're just talking about
more consistent work and better planning. Another side of the
human element is the quality of management supervision. We've
abdicated much of that, ~ think, to labor.
Asaf Ashar, Louisiana State University: Perhaps a long-
term solution is to unify all the elements into one transportation
company.
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.
Hugh [acey: Most of us have a tendency to survive by
competing with each other. I'm a little surprised we haven't had
more comments on Robert Curry's points. He projected a major
crisis in a year or two because there's no capital being invested in
the trucking infrastructure.
Rudy Rubio: ~ don't know much about trucking, but there
was something in what Mr. Curry said that made a lot of sense.
My union's point of view is that if commitments are to be made
by unions, then there also have to be commitments on the part
of management. Management in trucking seems to be slipping
away. Without management commitment, how can there be labor
commitment?
Hugh [acey: You can have fast trains and big yards and
still not be able to move cargo in and out of the gate. Motiva-
tion is all important. Some time ago, Sea-Land embarked on a
product improvement-oriented self-analysis/motivation program
termed "Buy Analysis. At first it was difficult to apply the
concept to a service business. However, we put a tremendous
amount of time and effort into the challenge. The result was
about 690 projects with savings of $50 million offered up by grass-
roots workers. The target all along was the first-line supervisor
and the worker. We've been quite happy at the participation
we've had from most of our union people, including the clerks
and the machinists. We haven't had as much luck with the long-
shoremen because there's no path of communication for mutual
interest. We've decided to expand that concept and move toward
Japanese-style quality circles. We're relying increasingly on par-
ticipative management because we have found that if you have
a problem, the cause and the cure are often with the first-line
supervisor.
Clifford Sayre: We have been discussing productivity in var-
~ous elements of the transportation system. We've been blessed
in this country with an overabundance of capacity in all of the
elements of the transportation system. One of the things that
has a big influence on productivity is capacity utilization. Var-
ious elements of our transportation system are now starting to
rationalize themselves, for different reasons. At some point that is
going to have an impact on the performance of the total system.
Robert Curry's real message today is that we may find the pinch
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point between capacity and productivity first in trucking, as one
of the very key elements of the system.
Marty Frates, Teamsters Local 70: How has deregulation
affected the situation in the trucking industry?
Robert Curry, California Cart age Co.: Deregulation has
materially affected the industry. Six of the top 15 truck lines in
the United States have been forced into employee buyouts. We're
like people in the jungle; we're eating each other.
When ~ grew up in this industry, you had a tariff book and
you had rates. Everybody was equal. That's not the case today.
I'd hate to be a traffic manager. One company may offer a 42
percent discount today. Another finds out about it and offers 43
percent the next day. The largest and strongest companies will
survive. The long-haul irregular route carriers will survive also
because they're specialized. The rest of the industry is not going
to survive, and that's all there is to it. If you're going to survive,
you'd better be a big guy or a specialist. The other crippling
factor is the national insurance crisis. This industry's problems
will be solved in the Tong run by attrition.
Marty Frates: Deregulation of trucking has also affected
safety. Trucks are no longer being maintained adequately because
the revenue isn't there for that.
Robert Nolan, International Terminal Operating Co.,
Inc.: Has any thought been given to the effect on marine terminal
productivity of the lack of a regular work force on board ship?
Robert Fall, Sea-Land Service, Inc.: From the ocean car-
rier's perspective, the total transportation system is undergoing
a very rapid evolution. In the past, we've concerned ourselves
with moving freight from port to port. Today, the impetus is
on intermodalism in the total transportation system. This may
mean redesigning the terminal, moving it closer to a railhead, or
establishing unit trains. The ocean carrier is pressuring the total
system. For one thing, he's building and operating larger-capacity
ships.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
marine terminals
