Study On The Control Of Empty Containers Shortage For Liners Base On Supply-chain Inventory Theory

A global economic crisis, which starting in 2008, affected container liners with a long term downturn. Till to the end of 2009, with the recovery of international trade, container shipping market started to pick up quickly. In order to earn more profit, container liners implemented many rounds of freight restoration and usage of idle capacities. However, due to the total empty containers volume were badly cutting down during the crisis year, as well as there left not enough time for the new equipments production to meet the carriers'demands, a large-scale of empty containers shortage broke out.The thesis is based on the development trace of container liner shipping, focus on empty containers management, study from the Supply-chain inventory theory, try to find new methods help liner companies avoid empty containers shortage and achieve the goal of profit-maximum. Firstly, considering the characteristic of empty containers consuming, renew a forecast method with the exponential smoothing way. Secondly, rely on the profit-maximum theory, analyze the relation between the average freight rate and empty containers service level. Thereafter, study some of Supply-chain inventory supplement methods, use an improved (t, S) model to set up an empty containers inventory complement model. Finally, test the above new method and model by some liner's historical data.The reference value of the thesis is that base on the Supply-chain inventory theory which could help container liners optimize the empty containers management, meanwhile, find some new ideas to transfer liners'focus from the cost-minimum to the profit-maximum when the shipping market keep on a healthy level.