۱- Introduction

۲- Literature Review

۳- Criteria for Ship Management Firm Selection

۴- Advanced Evaluation Method for SMF Selection

۵- Application of Fuzzy-TOPSIS on Ship Management Firm Selection

۶- Concluding Remarks

References

Abstract

Although extant literature has stressed importance of the use of ship management and identified the selection factors, relative evaluation of comprehensive selection factors is found to be lacking. This study aims to evaluate the overall performance and rank of the ship management firms by adopting an integrated model of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) in order to support the critical decision making on SMF selection based on multiple criteria. This study contributes to enhancing the selection criteria of ship management firms by the ship-owners, and at the same time identifies the areas that the ship management firms require to improve their service standards. The result indicates that competency is the most important criterion, followed by cost, courtesy, organisation characteristics and image.

Introduction

Shipping is the backbone of global logistics and supply chain. Its nature is complex, so conducting shipping business requires expertise in a wide range of ship operations. Ship management industry is a well-established sector within and as an integral part of the value chain in the maritime industry has been operating in its own right for around half a century. Today, third party Ship Management Firms (hereafter SMF) account for 35% of the management of global shipping with SMF such as V-ships, Columbia Ship Management, Barber International, ASP Ship Management and Orient Ship Management as some of the leaders (Branch and Robarts, 2014). With the growing prevalence of SMF, there is a need for studying their competitive position which currently lacks in academic research (Mitroussi, 2004a). The growth of a SMF represents a revolutionary change in the concept and practice of shipping business (Mitroussi, 2003). Over the last few decades a large number of ship owners have separated their ownership and control of vessels. Originally, management of ships was considered integral with its ownership, but, increasingly this activity has been outsourced.